Lawton Chiles Jr., former Senator for Florida

Chiles was a senator from Florida and was a Democrat. He served from 1971 to 1988.

Photo of Sen. Lawton Chiles [D-FL, 1971-1988]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Chiles is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1988 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 Chiles sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 26, 1983 to Oct 22, 1988. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Chiles was the primary sponsor of 29 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 29 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

Chiles sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Crime and Law Enforcement (19%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Economics and Public Finance (15%) International Affairs (12%) Health (11%) Immigration (10%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Social Welfare (8%)

Recent Bills

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

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Feb 1971 to Oct 1988, Chiles missed 769 of 8,781 roll call votes, which is 8.8%. This is worse than the median of 5.9% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1988. 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
1971 Feb-Mar	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	89	18	20.2%	68^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	6	5.5%	21^st
1971 Oct-Dec	202	59	29.2%	95^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	26	21.8%	79^th
1972 Apr-Jun	130	15	11.5%	42^nd
1972 Jul-Sep	206	20	9.7%	63^rd
1972 Oct-Oct	75	11	14.7%	47^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	2	3.0%	28^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	18	9.4%	36^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	21	12.6%	72^nd
1973 Oct-Dec	168	16	9.5%	56^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	6	6.4%	42^nd
1974 Apr-Jun	179	20	11.2%	69^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	9	6.5%	38^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	11	8.3%	46^th
1975 Jan-Mar	118	5	4.2%	53^rd
1975 Apr-Jun	141	13	9.2%	57^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	9	5.3%	37^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	23	12.6%	73^rd
1976 Jan-Mar	109	4	3.7%	23^rd
1976 Apr-Jun	263	15	5.7%	30^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	67	21.3%	77^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	13	100.0%	80^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	11	12.0%	60^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	4	2.2%	24^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	3	1.3%	16^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	4	3.0%	18^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	8	10.3%	60^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	3	2.5%	24^th
1978 Jul-Sep	237	6	2.5%	16^th
1978 Oct-Oct	86	4	4.7%	42^nd
1979 Feb-Mar	32	5	15.6%	85^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	9	7.4%	66^th
1979 Jul-Sep	171	12	7.0%	47^th
1979 Oct-Dec	184	23	12.5%	79^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	11	16.4%	87^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	3	1.4%	10^th
1980 Jul-Sep	179	3	1.7%	17^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	4	4.8%	29^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	3	5.3%	76^th
1981 Apr-Jun	125	8	6.4%	81^st
1981 Jul-Sep	122	13	10.7%	78^th
1981 Oct-Dec	193	6	3.1%	19^th
1982 Feb-Mar	79	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	3	2.4%	39^th
1982 Jul-Sep	177	11	6.2%	68^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	2	3.7%	53^rd
1983 Apr-Jun	122	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	2	2.2%	31^st
1983 Oct-Nov	103	9	8.7%	66^th
1984 Jan-Mar	45	2	4.4%	44^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	1	0.7%	5^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	6	8.8%	70^th
1984 Oct-Oct	34	2	5.9%	56^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	3	13.6%	89^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	4	3.4%	60^th
1985 Jul-Sep	60	1	1.7%	43^rd
1985 Oct-Dec	183	58	31.7%	99^th
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	56^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	11	10.7%	90^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	3	2.0%	52^nd
1986 Oct-Oct	56	1	1.8%	60^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	3	6.0%	66^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	11	8.9%	79^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	4	3.3%	45^th
1987 Oct-Dec	127	4	3.1%	38^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	20	23.8%	92^nd
1988 Apr-Jun	137	31	22.6%	95^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	15	11.8%	81^st
1988 Oct-Oct	31	10	32.3%	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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills

Sen. Lawton Chiles Jr.

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