Rep. Joseph Pitts

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2016 Report Card for Pitts.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Pitts is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2016 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 Pitts sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 5, 2011 to Dec 30, 2016. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Pitts was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• H.R. 639 (114th): Improving Regulatory Transparency for New Medical Therapies Act
• H.R. 2340 (114th): To amend the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act to remove regulatory barriers to the re-exportation of controlled substances among members of the European Economic Area.
• H.R. 4771 (113th): Designer Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2014
• H.R. 4302 (113th): Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014
• H.R. 6075 (109th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 East Gay Street in West Chester, Pennsylvania, as the “Robert J. Thompson Post Office …
• H.R. 3423 (109th): Medical Device User Fee Stabilization Act of 2005
• H.R. 5418 (106th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 431 North George Street in Millersville, Pennsylvania, as the “Robert S. Walker Post Office”.

View All »

Does 8 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

Pitts sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Health (44%) International Affairs (20%) Crime and Law Enforcement (10%) Sports and Recreation (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Pitts recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 6518 (114th): MACPAC Improvement Act of 2016
• H.R. 4725 (114th): Common Sense Savings Act of 2016
• H.R. 4368 (114th): To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to clarify the …
• H.R. 4367 (114th): To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to end the …
• H.R. 3984 (114th): Fairness for Crime Victims Act of 2015
• H.R. 3444 (114th): Medicaid and CHIP Territory Fraud Prevention Act
• H.Res. 352 (114th): Expressing support for the designation of a “Prisoners of Conscience Day”.

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1997 to Dec 2016, Pitts missed 342 of 13,498 roll call votes, which is 2.5%. This is on par with the median of 2.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2016. 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.

Show the numbers...

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
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills