Sen. Paul Laxalt

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

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

Enacted Legislation

Laxalt was the primary sponsor of 12 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1625 (99th): A bill to authorize the conveyance of 470 acres in Nevada to the University of Nevada for use as a research and development center.
• S. 1503 (99th): A bill to clear title to certain lands along the California-Nevada boundary.
• S. 1568 (99th): A bill to declare that the United States holds certain lands in trust for the Reno Sparks Indian Colony.
• S. 1160 (98th): A bill to authorize Douglas County of the State of Nevada to transfer certain land to a private owner.
• S. 1694 (98th): A bill to declare that the United States holds certain lands in trust for the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe.
• S.J.Res. 105 (97th): A joint resolution to designate October 1982 as “National P.T.A. Membership Month.”
• S. 2135 (97th): A bill to amend the Administrative Conference Act, by authorizing appropriations therefor.

View All »

Does 12 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

Laxalt sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Public Lands and Natural Resources (25%) Taxation (18%) Private Legislation (14%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Water Resources Development (10%) Native Americans (8%) Economics and Public Finance (8%) Immigration (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Laxalt recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 2698 (99th): National Forests of Nevada Enhancement Act of 1986
• S. 2556 (99th): A bill to suspend the site selection process under the Nuclear Waste …
• S. 2557 (99th): Indian Gambling Authorization and Regulation Act of 1986
• S. 2457 (99th): A bill to grant the consent of Congress to the California-Nevada Interstate …
• S. 2194 (99th): A bill to authorize the conveyance of 40 acres in Nevada to …
• S. 1971 (99th): A bill to transfer certain lands under the jurisdiction of the Secretary …
• S. 1725 (99th): A bill to authorize a railroad-highway crossing demonstration project in Elko, Nevada.

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1974 to Oct 1986, Laxalt missed 1,251 of 6,398 roll call votes, which is 19.6%. This is much worse than the median of 6.0% among the lifetime records of senators 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...

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