Gravel was a senator from Alaska and was a Democrat. He served from 1969 to 1980.
![Photo of Sen. Maurice “Mike” Gravel [D-AK, 1969-1980]](/static/legislator-photos/404738-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Gravel is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate 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 Gravel sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 15, 1975 to Dec 16, 1980. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Gravel was the primary sponsor of 10 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 1624 (96th): A bill for the relief of Francisco Pang.
- S. 1640 (96th): A bill to extend certain authorities of the Secretary of the Interior with respect to water resources research and development and saline water conversion research and development …
- S. 2704 (95th): Water Research and Development Act
- S. 2701 (95th): An Act to amend the Water Resources Planning Act (75 Stat. 244, As Amended).
- S. 2281 (95th): An original bill authorizing an increase in the monetary authorization for nine comprehensive river basin plans.
- S. 2118 (95th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to convey certain home sites within the Chugach and Tongass National Forests, Alaska.
- S. 3823 (94th): Water Resources Development Act
Does 10 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
Gravel sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Private Legislation (17%) Taxation (16%) Water Resources Development (15%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (13%) Energy (11%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Economics and Public Finance (9%) Native Americans (8%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Gravel recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 2863 (96th): A bill for the relief of Kenan Demirci.
- S. 2784 (96th): A bill to amend the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of …
- S. 2766 (96th): Hydropower Development Act of 1980
- S. 2715 (96th): A bill to develop new sources of oil and gas.
- S. 2706 (96th): A bill to establish a one hundred per cent observer program on …
- S.J.Res. 166 (96th): A joint resolution designating the first week of August 1980 as “National …
- S. 2602 (96th): Local Hire Preference Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1969 to Dec 1980, Gravel missed 1,942 of 6,280 roll call votes, which is 30.9%. This is much worse than the median of 9.2% among the lifetime records of senators 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. Legislators running for president or vice president typically miss votes while on the campaign trail — that’s normal. See our analysis of presidential candidates’ missed votes.
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
