Joseph Karth, former Representative for Minnesota's 4th Congressional District

Karth was the representative for Minnesota’s 4^th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1959 to 1976.

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Karth is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1976 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Karth sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Karth was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:

H.R. 11076 (94th): A bill for the relief of Ok Ja Choi.

View All »

Does 1 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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Karth sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (29%) Transportation and Public Works (19%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Agriculture and Food (9%) Social Welfare (8%) Commerce (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%) Labor and Employment (8%)

Recent Bills

Some of Karth’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1959 to Oct 1976, Karth missed 833 of 4,966 roll call votes, which is 16.8%. This is much worse than the median of 8.7% among the lifetime records of representatives 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.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1959 Jan-Apr	16	0	0.0%	0^th
1959 May-Aug	54	0	0.0%	0^th
1959 Sep-Sep	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1960 Feb-Apr	23	0	0.0%	0^th
1960 May-Aug	70	1	1.4%	67^th
1961 Jan-Apr	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1961 May-Aug	65	2	3.1%	62^nd
1961 Sep-Sep	29	2	6.9%	77^th
1962 Jan-Mar	21	2	9.5%	89^th
1962 Apr-Jun	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Jul-Sep	49	2	4.1%	82^nd
1962 Oct-Oct	22	2	9.1%	84^th
1963 Jan-Mar	9	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Apr-Jun	31	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jul-Sep	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Oct-Dec	50	4	8.0%	74^th
1964 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Apr-Jun	34	1	2.9%	57^th
1964 Jul-Sep	49	2	4.1%	66^th
1964 Oct-Oct	4	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Apr-Jun	53	9	17.0%	72^nd
1965 Jul-Sep	98	5	5.1%	37^th
1965 Oct-Oct	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1966 Jan-Mar	30	1	3.3%	23^rd
1966 Apr-Jun	51	2	3.9%	20^th
1966 Jul-Sep	72	12	16.7%	59^th
1966 Oct-Oct	40	5	12.5%	36^th
1967 Jan-Mar	31	3	9.7%	91^st
1967 Apr-Jun	57	2	3.5%	69^th
1967 Jul-Sep	59	1	1.7%	44^th
1967 Oct-Dec	98	1	1.0%	25^th
1968 Jan-Mar	38	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Apr-Jun	79	1	1.3%	23^rd
1968 Jul-Sep	91	2	2.2%	28^th
1968 Oct-Oct	25	2	8.0%	39^th
1969 Jan-Mar	16	1	6.2%	54^th
1969 Apr-Jun	28	1	3.6%	22^nd
1969 Jul-Sep	45	5	11.1%	56^th
1969 Oct-Dec	88	10	11.4%	45^th
1970 Jan-Mar	35	2	5.7%	30^th
1970 Apr-Jun	74	7	9.5%	23^rd
1970 Jul-Sep	76	18	23.7%	77^th
1970 Oct-Dec	81	22	27.2%	71^st
1971 Jan-Mar	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	90	9	10.0%	34^th
1971 Jul-Sep	74	7	9.5%	54^th
1971 Oct-Dec	134	16	11.9%	51^st
1972 Jan-Mar	64	8	12.5%	59^th
1972 Apr-Jun	114	28	24.6%	79^th
1972 Jul-Sep	101	3	3.0%	17^th
1972 Oct-Oct	50	1	2.0%	16^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	5	13.9%	67^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	21	11.0%	62^nd
1973 Jul-Sep	131	6	4.6%	46^th
1973 Oct-Dec	182	12	6.6%	45^th
1974 Jan-Mar	79	9	11.4%	64^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	29	17.1%	76^th
1974 Jul-Sep	148	1	0.7%	7^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	6	4.3%	24^th
1975 Jan-Mar	68	5	7.4%	56^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	28	14.1%	79^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	33	21.4%	91^st
1975 Oct-Dec	191	31	16.2%	87^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	31	29.2%	94^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	230	86.1%	99^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	180	64.1%	97^th
1976 Oct-Oct	7	4	57.1%	88^th

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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills

Rep. Joseph Karth

Links

Follow GovTrack on social media for more updates:

On GovTrack Insider:

I have an opinion I want to share.

I need help, have a question, or want to schedule a tour.