Thompson was a senator from Kentucky and was an American. He served from 1853 to 1859.
He was previously the representative for Kentucky’s 5th congressional district as a Whig from 1849 to 1851; the representative for Kentucky’s 5th congressional district as a Whig from 1847 to 1849; and the representative for Kentucky’s 5th congressional district as a Whig from 1839 to 1843.
![Photo of Sen. John Burton Thompson [A-KY, 1853-1859]](/static/legislator-photos/410787-200px.jpeg)
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Mar 1853 to Mar 1859, Thompson missed 953 of 1,697 roll call votes, which is 56.2%. This is much worse than the median of 25.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Mar 1859. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
- Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
