Rep. Michael Barnes

Former Representative for Maryland’s 8^th District

Barnes was the representative for Maryland’s 8^th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1979 to 1986.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Barnes is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1986 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 Barnes sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 5, 1981 to Oct 18, 1986. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Barnes was the primary sponsor of 7 bills that were enacted:

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Does 7 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

Barnes sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (46%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Private Legislation (9%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (7%) Health (7%) Immigration (6%) Economics and Public Finance (6%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Barnes recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1979 to Oct 1986, Barnes missed 237 of 3,884 roll call votes, which is 6.1%. This is on par with the median of 6.2% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1986. 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
1979 Jan-Mar	63	2	3.2%	46^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	8	3.6%	27^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	3	1.5%	13^th
1979 Oct-Dec	190	4	2.1%	11^th
1980 Jan-Mar	148	20	13.5%	73^rd
1980 Apr-Jun	197	2	1.0%	8^th
1980 Jul-Sep	192	3	1.6%	12^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Jan-Mar	15	1	6.7%	46^th
1981 Apr-Jun	90	2	2.2%	16^th
1981 Jul-Sep	106	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Oct-Dec	142	7	4.9%	38^th
1982 Feb-Mar	48	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Apr-Jun	119	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Jul-Sep	193	13	6.7%	54^th
1982 Oct-Dec	99	11	11.1%	63^rd
1983 Jan-Mar	43	8	18.6%	85^th
1983 Apr-Jun	182	3	1.6%	15^th
1983 Jul-Sep	130	3	2.3%	31^st
1983 Oct-Nov	143	6	4.2%	37^th
1984 Jan-Mar	53	1	1.9%	22^nd
1984 Apr-Jun	223	2	0.9%	7^th
1984 Jul-Sep	96	1	1.0%	16^th
1984 Oct-Oct	36	4	11.1%	68^th
1985 Jan-Mar	36	2	5.6%	35^th
1985 Apr-Jun	154	5	3.2%	35^th
1985 Jul-Sep	101	0	0.0%	0^th
1985 Oct-Dec	148	13	8.8%	76^th
1986 Jan-Mar	61	14	23.0%	89^th
1986 Apr-Jun	128	16	12.5%	86^th
1986 Jul-Sep	202	80	39.6%	97^th
1986 Oct-Oct	60	3	5.0%	51^st

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