Rep. Mervyn Dymally

Former Representative for California’s 31^st District

Dymally was the representative for California’s 31^st congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1981 to 1992.

Bioguide

Photo of Rep. Mervyn Dymally [D-CA31, 1981-1992]

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Dymally is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1992 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 Dymally sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 9, 1992. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Dymally was the primary sponsor of 13 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 13 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

Dymally sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (29%) Government Operations and Politics (22%) Health (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Education (8%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (8%) Law (6%) Immigration (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Dymally recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1981 to Oct 1992, Dymally missed 997 of 5,383 roll call votes, which is 18.5%. This is much worse than the median of 4.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1992. 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...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1981 Jan-Mar	15	2	13.3%	73^rd
1981 Apr-Jun	90	31	34.4%	98^th
1981 Jul-Sep	106	25	23.6%	96^th
1981 Oct-Dec	142	31	21.8%	94^th
1982 Feb-Mar	48	7	14.6%	74^th
1982 Apr-Jun	119	17	14.3%	88^th
1982 Jul-Sep	193	32	16.6%	89^th
1982 Oct-Dec	99	39	39.4%	96^th
1983 Jan-Mar	43	3	7.0%	46^th
1983 Apr-Jun	182	40	22.0%	96^th
1983 Jul-Sep	130	7	5.4%	67^th
1983 Oct-Nov	143	21	14.7%	91^st
1984 Jan-Mar	53	8	15.1%	79^th
1984 Apr-Jun	223	79	35.4%	99^th
1984 Jul-Sep	96	6	6.2%	62^nd
1984 Oct-Oct	36	16	44.4%	97^th
1985 Jan-Mar	36	13	36.1%	98^th
1985 Apr-Jun	154	10	6.5%	65^th
1985 Jul-Sep	101	22	21.8%	97^th
1985 Oct-Dec	148	20	13.5%	94^th
1986 Jan-Mar	61	3	4.9%	41^st
1986 Apr-Jun	128	6	4.7%	61^st
1986 Jul-Sep	202	14	6.9%	74^th
1986 Oct-Oct	60	1	1.7%	34^th
1987 Jan-Mar	39	5	12.8%	83^rd
1987 Apr-Jun	187	27	14.4%	92^nd
1987 Jul-Sep	95	20	21.1%	95^th
1987 Oct-Dec	167	18	10.8%	80^th
1988 Feb-Mar	49	7	14.3%	86^th
1988 Apr-Jun	161	19	11.8%	89^th
1988 Jul-Sep	152	29	19.1%	95^th
1988 Oct-Oct	89	1	1.1%	36^th
1989 Jan-Mar	14	2	14.3%	84^th
1989 Apr-Jun	105	10	9.5%	87^th
1989 Jul-Sep	128	6	4.7%	70^th
1989 Oct-Nov	121	10	8.3%	77^th
1990 Jan-Mar	60	3	5.0%	67^th
1990 Apr-Jun	150	11	7.3%	80^th
1990 Jul-Sep	183	11	6.0%	77^th
1990 Oct-Oct	143	16	11.2%	89^th
1991 Jan-Mar	62	31	50.0%	99^th
1991 Apr-Jun	139	30	21.6%	97^th
1991 Jul-Sep	81	18	22.2%	95^th
1991 Oct-Nov	162	38	23.5%	98^th
1992 Jan-Mar	66	31	47.0%	99^th
1992 Apr-Jun	185	97	52.4%	99^th
1992 Jul-Sep	196	91	46.4%	98^th
1992 Oct-Oct	41	13	31.7%	94^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
The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
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