Clark was a senator from Iowa and was a Democrat. He served from 1973 to 1978.
![Photo of Sen. Richard “Dick” Clark [D-IA, 1973-1978]](/static/legislator-photos/402586-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Clark is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1978 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 Clark sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 15, 1978. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Clark was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:
- S. 174 (95th): A bill to amend the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 to halt the importation of Rhodesian chrome.
- S. 543 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on the use of certain property conveyed to the city of Algona, Iowa, for airport purposes.
- S. 1776 (93rd): A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended.
Does 3 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
Clark sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (24%) Agriculture and Food (18%) International Affairs (17%) Private Legislation (14%) Social Welfare (8%) Health (7%) Labor and Employment (7%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Clark recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 3298 (95th): Rural Development Consolidation Act
- S. 3297 (95th): Rural Development Coordination Act
- S. 2968 (95th): Agricultural Export Expansion Act
- S. 2912 (95th): Agricultural Act
- S. 2758 (95th): A bill to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to prevent conflicts of …
- S. 2487 (95th): Rural Health Needs Planning Act
- S. 2356 (95th): A bill for the relief of Margaret Duff.
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1973 to Oct 1978, Clark missed 255 of 3,605 roll call votes, which is 7.1%. This is better than the median of 12.1% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1978. 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.
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
