Mfume was the representative for Maryland’s 7th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1987 to 1996.
![Photo of Rep. Kweisi Mfume [D-MD7, 1987-1996]](/static/legislator-photos/407672-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Mfume is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1996 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 Mfume sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Mfume was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.J.Res. 367 (101st): Designating February 11 through 17, 1990, as “Vocational-Technical Education Week”.
- H.J.Res. 572 (100th): A joint resolution designating November 28 through December 2, 1988, as “Vocational-Technical Education Week”.
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
Mfume sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Commerce (19%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Education (15%) Crime and Law Enforcement (15%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (11%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Finance and Financial Sector (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (6%)
Recent Bills
Some of Mfume’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 2730 (104th): To eliminate segregationist language from the Second Morrill Act.
- H.R. 113 (104th): Automobile Insurance Information Act of 1995
- H.R. 114 (104th): Minority Business Development Act of 1993
- H.R. 115 (104th): To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to clarify the deduction ...
- H.R. 111 (104th): Minority Enterprise Development Act of 1995
- H.R. 112 (104th): Electronic Anti-Stalking Act of 1995
- H.R. 5271 (103rd): Minority Enterprise Development Act of 1994
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1987 to Feb 1996, Mfume missed 271 of 4,812 roll call votes, which is 5.6%. This is worse than the median of 2.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Feb 1996. 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
