Sen. Pete Wilson

Former Senator for California

Wilson was a senator from California and was a Republican. He served from 1983 to 1991.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. Pete Wilson [R-CA, 1983-1991]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Wilson is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1992 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 Wilson sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 8, 1992. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Wilson was the primary sponsor of 18 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 18 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

Wilson sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Health (16%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (15%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Social Welfare (12%) International Affairs (12%) Environmental Protection (11%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (10%) Armed Forces and National Security (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Wilson recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Feb 1983 to Oct 1990, Wilson missed 238 of 2,839 roll call votes, which is 8.4%. This is worse than the median of 4.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1990. 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
1983 Feb-Mar	54	2	3.7%	54^th
1983 Apr-Jun	122	1	0.8%	16^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Oct-Nov	103	4	3.9%	31^st
1984 Jan-Mar	45	1	2.2%	27^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	4	2.8%	24^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	0	0.0%	0^th
1984 Oct-Oct	34	0	0.0%	0^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	31	26.7%	97^th
1985 Jul-Sep	60	2	3.3%	53^rd
1985 Oct-Dec	183	3	1.6%	27^th
1986 Jan-Mar	51	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	2	1.6%	26^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	4	3.3%	45^th
1987 Oct-Dec	127	30	23.6%	96^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	13	15.5%	81^st
1988 Apr-Jun	137	21	15.3%	96^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	8	6.3%	64^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	14	45.2%	94^th
1989 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	3	3.9%	77^th
1989 Jul-Sep	118	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Oct-Nov	91	22	24.2%	98^th
1990 Jan-Mar	48	3	6.2%	85^th
1990 Apr-Jun	95	16	16.8%	97^th
1990 Jul-Sep	114	38	33.3%	99^th
1990 Oct-Oct	69	16	23.2%	97^th

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