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Rep. Richard Zimmer

Former Representative for New Jersey’s 12th District

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Zimmer was the representative for New Jersey’s 12th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1991 to 1996.

Alleged misconduct & resolution

In 1996, based on an accusation made by Torricelli, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct investigated Zimmer for using a congressional fax machine for a non-official purpose, specifically to send a press release entitled "Zimmer Wallops Torricelli in N.J. Congressional Softball Tourney" which was alleged to be a personal attack and therefore a violation of usage rules. The complaint was returned on Jan. 5, 1996 for failing to meet standards of committee procedures and subsequently rel-submitted. The complaint was dismissed on March 29, 1996 for lack of merit. On Nov. 5, 1996, Zimmer lost his bid for a New Jersey Senate seat to Torricelli.

Mar. 29, 1996 House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct complaint filed on Dec. 21, 1995; complaint returned on Jan. 5, 1996 for failing to meet standards of committee procedures; complaint re-submitted on Jan. 19, 1996; dismissed the complaint on March 29, 1996 for lack of merit.
Nov. 5, 1996 Zimmer lost his bid for a New Jersey Senate seat to Torricelli.
Photo of Rep. Richard Zimmer [R-NJ12, 1991-1996]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Zimmer is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1996 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 Zimmer sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Zimmer was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:

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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

Zimmer sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (20%) Economics and Public Finance (15%) Environmental Protection (14%) Taxation (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (11%) Law (9%) Agriculture and Food (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%)

Recent Bills

Some of Zimmer’s most recently sponsored bills include...

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1991 to Sep 1996, Zimmer missed 53 of 3,394 roll call votes, which is 1.6%. This is better than the median of 2.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Sep 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.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

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