Paul Simon, former Senator for Illinois

Analysis

Our unique analysis of the bills Simon sponsored and cosponsored provides insight into his position in the Senate.

Each dot in the chart below was a member of the Senate in 1996. The dots are positioned horizontally according to our progressive—conservative ideology score and vertically according to our leadership score (leaders toward the top). Simon is shown as a purple triangle. (analysis methodology)

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...

View All » (including bills from previous years)

Voting Record

See how presidential campaigns affect voting records.

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.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1985 Jan-Mar	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	6	5.2%	71^st
1985 Jul-Sep	60	11	18.3%	96^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	8	4.4%	54^th
1986 Jan-Mar	51	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	5	3.4%	69^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	2	4.0%	58^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	37	30.1%	97^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	92	76.7%	98^th
1987 Oct-Dec	127	112	88.2%	98^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	69	82.1%	97^th
1988 Apr-Jun	137	22	16.1%	97^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	8	6.3%	75^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	9	29.0%	93^rd
1989 Jan-Mar	26	1	3.8%	85^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Jul-Sep	118	1	0.8%	52^nd
1989 Oct-Nov	91	3	3.3%	83^rd
1990 Jan-Mar	48	2	4.2%	80^th
1990 Apr-Jun	95	1	1.1%	42^nd
1990 Jul-Sep	114	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Oct-Oct	69	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Jan-Mar	41	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Apr-Jun	74	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Jul-Sep	96	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Oct-Nov	69	4	5.8%	79^th
1992 Jan-Mar	61	3	4.9%	80^th
1992 Apr-Jun	74	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Jul-Sep	117	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Feb-Mar	93	2	2.2%	80^th
1993 Apr-Jun	99	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Jul-Sep	109	2	1.8%	63^rd
1993 Oct-Nov	94	0	0.0%	0^th
1994 Jan-Mar	86	0	0.0%	0^th
1994 Apr-Jun	92	3	3.3%	75^th
1994 Jul-Sep	136	4	2.9%	62^nd
1994 Oct-Dec	15	0	0.0%	0^th
1995 Jan-Mar	125	1	0.8%	42^nd
1995 Apr-Jun	171	5	2.9%	77^th
1995 Jul-Sep	184	4	2.2%	67^th
1995 Oct-Dec	133	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Jan-Mar	60	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Apr-Jun	122	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Jul-Sep	121	1	0.8%	57^th
1996 Oct-Oct	3	0	0.0%	0^th

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
Congressional Biographical Directory for elected positions
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
GPO.gov/FDSys, for sponsored bills

Sen. Paul Simon

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