Early was the representative for Massachusetts’s 3rd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1992.
![Photo of Rep. Joseph Early [D-MA3, 1975-1992]](/static/legislator-photos/403709-200px.jpeg)
Enacted Legislation
Early was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4118 (99th): A bill to designate the building commonly known as the “Old Post Office” in Worcester, Massachusetts, as the “Harold D. Donohue Federal Building”.
- H.J.Res. 568 (97th): A joint resolution to provide for the designation of October 5, 1982 as “Dr. Robert H. Goddard Day”.
Does 2 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
Early sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (43%) Immigration (29%) Private Legislation (29%)
Recent Bills
Some of Early’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 4620 (101st): Fair Disclosure in Takeovers Act of 1990
- H.R. 4135 (101st): To provide an additional district judgeship for the District of Massachusetts.
- H.R. 2982 (101st): United States Flag Protection Act
- H.R. 1714 (100th): A bill for the relief of Kil Joon Yu Callahan.
- H.R. 4725 (99th): A bill for the relief of Kil Joon Yu Callahan.
- H.R. 4622 (99th): Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Act of 1986
- H.R. 4118 (99th): A bill to designate the building commonly known as the “Old Post ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Oct 1992, Early missed 980 of 9,472 roll call votes, which is 10.3%. This is much worse than the median of 4.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1992. 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
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- 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
