Rep. Martha Griffiths

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Griffiths is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1974 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 Griffiths sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Dec 20, 1974. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Griffiths was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 8864 (93rd): An Act to amend the act to incorporate Little League Baseball to provide that the league shall be open to girls as well as to boys.
• H.R. 12281 (93rd): An Act to continue until the close of June 30, 1975, the suspension of duties on certain forms of copper, and for other purposes.
• H.R. 2323 (93rd): A bill to continue until the close of June 30, 1974, the suspension of duties on certain forms of copper.
• H.R. 2324 (93rd): A bill to continue until the close of June 30, 1975, the existing suspension of duties for metal scrap.
• H.R. 7445 (93rd): An Act to extend the Renegotiation Act of 1951 for one year, and for other purposes.

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Does 5 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

Griffiths sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Social Welfare (28%) Taxation (22%) Health (21%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (6%) Environmental Protection (6%) Families (6%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%) Agriculture and Food (4%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Griffiths recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 17671 (93rd): Tax Credits and Allowances Act
• H.R. 17621 (93rd): A bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to …
• H.R. 17574 (93rd): Tax Credits and Allowances Act
• H.R. 16369 (93rd): Health Security Act
• H.R. 16091 (93rd): Health Security Act
• H.R. 15372 (93rd): A bill to amend the act to incorporate Little League Baseball to …
• H.Res. 1150 (93rd): Resolved, that Bob Traxler, of Michigan, be, and he is hereby, elected …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1955 to Dec 1974, Griffiths missed 777 of 4,035 roll call votes, which is 19.3%. This is much worse than the median of 9.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1974. 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
• 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