Sen. Lawton Chiles Jr.

Former Senator from Florida

Elected Positions

Dates	Title	State / District
1971-1988	Senator	Florida

Sponsorship Analysis

Chiles was a moderate Democratic leader according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship from Chiles’s time serving in the Senate. Chiles’s bills had a total of 260 cosponsors in the 100^th Congress.

Use this chart to compare Chiles to other members of the Senate in the 100^th Congress on leadership and ideology.

This chart is based on principal components analysis for ideology and PageRank for leadership. See analysis methodology.

Bills Sponsored

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

View All » (including bills from previous years)

Voting Record

From Feb 1971 to Oct 1988, Chiles missed 753 of 8,734 roll call votes, which is 8.6%. This is worse than the median of 5.3% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1988. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Elligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1971 Feb-Mar	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	88	17	19.3%	68^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	6	5.5%	21^st
1971 Oct-Dec	201	58	28.9%	95^th
1972 Jan-Mar	117	24	20.5%	79^th
1972 Apr-Jun	129	15	11.6%	42^nd
1972 Jul-Sep	206	20	9.7%	68^th
1972 Oct-Oct	75	11	14.7%	58^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	2	3.0%	28^th
1973 Apr-Jun	189	15	7.9%	48^th
1973 Jul-Sep	165	20	12.1%	76^th
1973 Oct-Dec	167	15	9.0%	56^th
1974 Jan-Mar	93	6	6.5%	42^nd
1974 Apr-Jun	178	20	11.2%	69^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	9	6.5%	38^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	11	8.3%	50^th
1975 Jan-Mar	117	5	4.3%	53^rd
1975 Apr-Jun	139	12	8.6%	60^th
1975 Jul-Sep	167	9	5.4%	37^th
1975 Oct-Dec	180	23	12.8%	73^rd
1976 Jan-Mar	103	4	3.9%	33^rd
1976 Apr-Jun	263	15	5.7%	30^th
1976 Jul-Sep	313	66	21.1%	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%	18^th
1977 Oct-Dec	131	3	2.3%	18^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	8	10.3%	67^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	3	2.5%	29^th
1978 Jul-Sep	235	6	2.6%	16^th
1978 Oct-Oct	85	4	4.7%	42^nd
1979 Feb-Mar	32	5	15.6%	87^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	9	7.4%	68^th
1979 Jul-Sep	170	12	7.1%	52^nd
1979 Oct-Dec	183	22	12.0%	79^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	11	16.4%	89^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	3	1.4%	11^th
1980 Jul-Sep	178	3	1.7%	17^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	4	4.8%	29^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	3	5.3%	78^th
1981 Apr-Jun	124	7	5.6%	78^th
1981 Jul-Sep	121	12	9.9%	78^th
1981 Oct-Dec	192	6	3.1%	20^th
1982 Feb-Mar	77	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	3	2.4%	39^th
1982 Jul-Sep	176	10	5.7%	66^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	2	3.7%	56^th
1983 Apr-Jun	121	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	2	2.2%	31^st
1983 Oct-Nov	101	9	8.9%	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%	73^rd
1984 Oct-Oct	35	3	8.6%	65^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	3	13.6%	89^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	4	3.4%	62^nd
1985 Jul-Sep	60	1	1.7%	44^th
1985 Oct-Dec	182	57	31.3%	99^th
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	59^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	11	10.7%	90^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	3	2.0%	54^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	1	1.8%	61^st
1987 Jan-Mar	50	3	6.0%	68^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	11	8.9%	79^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	4	3.3%	46^th
1987 Oct-Dec	127	4	3.1%	38^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	20	23.8%	92^nd
1988 Apr-Jun	136	31	22.8%	95^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	15	11.8%	82^nd
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:

Congressional Biographical Directory for elected positions
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
THOMAS, for sponsored bills

Recent Legislative Activity

Elections and Offices

Sen. Lawton Chiles [D-FL, 1971-1988] leaves office as Senator from Florida

Oct 22, 1988

Elections and Offices

Sen. Lawton Chiles [D-FL, 1971-1988] takes office as Senator from Florida

Jan 21, 1971