![Photo of Sen. Paul Simon [D-IL, 1985-1996]](/static/legislator-photos/409917-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Simon is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1996 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Simon sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Simon was the primary sponsor of 50 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 811 (104th): Water Desalination Act of 1996
- S. 1443 (104th): A bill to designate the United States Post Office building located at 102 South McLean, Lincoln, Illinois, as the “Edward Madigan Post Office Building”, and for other ...
- S. 457 (104th): A bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to update references in the classification of children for purposes of United States immigration laws.
- S. 547 (104th): A bill to extend the deadlines applicable to certain hydroelectric projects under the Federal Power Act, and for other purposes.
- S. 2372 (103rd): Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994
- S. 1361 (103rd): School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1993
- S.J.Res. 61 (103rd): A joint resolution to designate the week of October 3, 1993, through October 9, 1993, as “Mental Illness Awareness Week”.
Does 50 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
Simon sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (24%) Labor and Employment (17%) Law (12%) Commerce (11%) International Affairs (10%) Education (9%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Health (9%)
Recent Bills
Some of Simon’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S. 2161 (104th): Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996
- S. 2095 (104th): Government Corporation and Government Sponsored Enterprise Standards Act
- S. 1997 (104th): Presidential Succession Clarification Act
- S. 1872 (104th): A bill to amend section 922(x)(5) of title 18, United States Code, ...
- S. 1532 (104th): A bill to provide for the continuing operation of the Office of ...
- S. 1496 (104th): A bill to grant certain patent rights for certain non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ...
- S. 1490 (104th): Pension Audit Improvement Act of 1995
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1985 to Oct 1996, Simon missed 418 of 4,370 roll call votes, which is 9.6%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1996. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
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
