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Rep. Nick Rahall

Former Representative for West Virginia’s 3rd District


Rahall was the representative for West Virginia’s 3rd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1993 to 2014.

He was previously the representative for West Virginia’s 4th congressional district as a Democrat from 1977 to 1992.

Photo of Rep. Nick Rahall [D-WV3, 1993-2014]

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2014 Report Card for Rahall.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Rahall is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2014 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 Rahall sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2009 to Dec 11, 2014. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Rahall was the primary sponsor of 14 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 14 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

Rahall sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Public Lands and Natural Resources (25%) Transportation and Public Works (22%) Environmental Protection (12%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Labor and Employment (9%) Emergency Management (6%) Government Operations and Politics (6%) Health (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Rahall recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Rahall voted Nay

Passed 219/206 on Dec 11, 2014.

This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 [pdf], which was approved by the House on December …

Rahall voted Aye

Rahall voted Yea

Rahall voted Aye

Rahall voted Aye

Passed 304/117 on Jun 23, 2011.

The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack …

Missed Votes

From Jan 1977 to Dec 2014, Rahall missed 844 of 22,834 roll call votes, which is 3.7%. This is worse than the median of 2.5% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2014. 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: