Sen. Robert Byrd

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Byrd is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2010 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 Byrd sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 24, 2005 to Dec 22, 2010. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Byrd was the primary sponsor of 37 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1298 (111th): Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010
• S. 1644 (110th): Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008
• S. 1576 (108th): Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Boundary Revision Act of 2004
• S. 2551 (107th): 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response To Terrorist Attacks on the United States
• S. 1077 (107th): Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2001
• S. 595 (104th): A bill to provide for the extension of a hydroelectric project located in the State of West Virginia.
• S. 359 (104th): A bill to provide for the extension of certain hydroelectric projects located in the State of West Virginia.

View All »

Does 37 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

Byrd sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Law (17%) Energy (15%) Government Operations and Politics (13%) Labor and Employment (12%) Commerce (12%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Science, Technology, Communications (10%) Economics and Public Finance (10%)

Recent Bills

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

• S.Res. 487 (111th): A resolution honoring the coal miners who perished in the Upper Big ...
• S.Res. 337 (111th): A resolution designating December 6, 2009, as “National Miners Day”.
• S. 1579 (111th): Restore Our American Mustangs Act
• S. 1534 (111th): Appalachian Development Highway System Completion Act of 2009
• S. 1529 (111th): Executive Accountability Act of 2009
• S. 1298 (111th): Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010
• S.Res. 146 (111th): A resolution commending South Charleston, West Virginia, for celebrating its 50th annual ...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1959 to Jun 2010, Byrd missed 679 of 19,246 roll call votes, which is 3.5%. This is worse than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jun 2010. 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:

• 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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills