Tunney was a senator from California and was a Democrat. He served from 1971 to 1976.
He was previously the representative for California’s 38th congressional district as a Democrat from 1965 to 1970.
![Photo of Sen. John Tunney [D-CA, 1971-1976]](/static/legislator-photos/410979-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Tunney is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1976 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Tunney sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Tunney was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:
- S. 2278 (94th): Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act
- S. 3149 (94th): Toxic Substances Control Act
- S. 811 (94th): Horse Protection Act Amendments
- S. 2472 (94th): A bill to designate certain lands in the Point Reyes National Seashore, California as wilderness; to designate Point Reyes National Seashore, as a natural area of the …
- S. 782 (93rd): Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act
- S.J.Res. 50 (93rd): A joint resolution authorizing the President to proclaim the last week in June of each year as “National Autistic Children’s Week.”
Does 6 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Tunney sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Energy (19%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (17%) Government Operations and Politics (13%) Labor and Employment (12%) Economics and Public Finance (12%) Environmental Protection (9%) Taxation (9%) Agriculture and Food (9%)
Recent Bills
Some of Tunney’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S.Res. 489 (94th): A resolution relating to the kidnapping of schoolchildren in Chowchilla, Calif.
- S. 3638 (94th): A bill to amend the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, to …
- S. 3639 (94th): A bill to amend the authorization for the Los Angeles and Long …
- S. 3633 (94th): A bill to provide reimbursement for disaster relief debris clearance to the …
- S.Con.Res. 128 (94th): Concurrent resolution directing the Secretary of the Senate to make corrections in …
- S. 3632 (94th): Federal Building Works of Art Program Act
- S. 3350 (94th): Materials Research and Development Act
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1971 to Oct 1976, Tunney missed 885 of 3,404 roll call votes, which is 26.0%. This is much worse than the median of 13.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1976. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
