Mathis was the representative for Georgia’s 2nd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1971 to 1980.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Mathis is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1980 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 Mathis sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Mathis was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:
- H.J.Res. 134 (96th): A joint resolution to designate the week commencing with the third Monday in February of each year as “National Patriotism Week”.
- H.R. 15068 (94th): An Act to provide for emergency allotment lease and transfer of tobacco allotments or quotas for 1976 in certain disaster areas in South Carolina and Georgia.
- H.R. 8529 (94th): Rice Production Act
Does 3 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
Mathis sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (23%) Agriculture and Food (21%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (19%) Economics and Public Finance (10%) Crime and Law Enforcement (8%) International Affairs (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%) Social Welfare (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Mathis recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 8113 (96th): Agricultural Disaster Relief Act of 1980
- H.Res. 659 (96th): A resolution to establish a Select Committee on International Terrorism.
- H.R. 7291 (96th): Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1979
- H.R. 7166 (96th): A bill to establish the eligibility of aviation fuel storage facilities for …
- H.R. 7121 (96th): Soybean Emergency Act of 1980
- H.R. 6797 (96th): A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain …
- H.J.Res. 499 (96th): A joint resolution to authorize the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Incorporated, to …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1971 to Dec 1980, Mathis missed 1,203 of 5,814 roll call votes, which is 20.7%. This is much worse than the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1980. 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.
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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
