Sen. Kent Conrad

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Conrad is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2013 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 Conrad sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 2007 to Jan 2, 2013. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Conrad was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:

• S. 2367 (112th): 21st Century Language Act of 2012
• S. 1998 (109th): Stolen Valor Act of 2005
• S. 2302 (108th): A bill to improve access to physicians in medically underserved areas.
• S. 1146 (108th): Three Affiliated Tribes Health Facility Compensation Act
• S.J.Res. 226 (103rd): A joint resolution providing for the temporary extension of the application of the final paragraph of section 10 of the Railway Labor Act with respect to the …
• S.J.Res. 386 (100th): A joint resolution to designate the week of June 18 through June 24, 1989 as “National Grasslands Week”.

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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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Conrad sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (20%) Health (18%) Finance and Financial Sector (14%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (10%) Economics and Public Finance (10%) Education (8%) Energy (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Conrad recently introduced the following legislation:

• S.Con.Res. 63 (112th): A concurrent resolution correcting the enrollment of S. 2367.
• S. 3659 (112th): Quality Improvement Organization Program Restoration Act
• S.Res. 605 (112th): A resolution designating the week beginning November 26, 2012, as “National Tribal …
• S. 3581 (112th): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify …
• S.Res. 555 (112th): A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of “National Save for Retirement …
• S.Res. 455 (112th): A resolution designating June 27, 2012, as “National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness …
• S. 2906 (112th): A bill to extend and modify the temporary suspension of duty on …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1987 to Jan 2013, Conrad missed 115 of 8,706 roll call votes, which is 1.3%. This is better than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2013. 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
• 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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills