Rep. Kenneth Hechler
Former Representative for West Virginia’s 4th District
Hechler was the representative for West Virginia’s 4th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1959 to 1976.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Hechler 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 ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Hechler sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Hechler was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:
- H.J.Res. 400 (94th): Joint resolution to restore posthumously full rights of citizenship to Gen. R. E. Lee.
- H.J.Res. 302 (93rd): Joint resolution to authorize and request the President to call a White House Conference on Library and Information Sciences in 1976.
- H.R. 3280 (93rd): A bill to amend the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 to extend the authorizations for a 1-year period.
Does 3 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
Hechler sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Energy (21%) Government Operations and Politics (19%) Labor and Employment (17%) Environmental Protection (13%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (11%) Taxation (7%) Law (6%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Hechler recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 15849 (94th): Government Economy and Spending Reform Act
- H.R. 15569 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to designate a …
- H.R. 14699 (94th): Congressional Mailing Act
- H.Res. 1339 (94th): Resolution to disapprove the proposed exemption of middle distillates from the mandatory …
- H.Res. 1338 (94th): Resolution to disapprove the proposed exemption of No. 2 heating oil and …
- H.Res. 1316 (94th): Resolution to require the adoption of a resolution by the House of …
- H.R. 13976 (94th): A bill to provide that the provisions of the Railroad Retirement Act …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1959 to Oct 1976, Hechler missed 43 of 4,966 roll call votes, which is 0.9%. This is better 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, 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
