Rep. Robert Drinan
Former Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th District
Drinan was the representative for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1973 to 1980.
He was previously the representative for Massachusetts’s 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1971 to 1972.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Drinan is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1980 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 Drinan sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Drinan was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4712 (96th): A bill to delay conditionally the effective date of certain rules of procedure and evidence proposed by the United States Supreme Court and for other purposes.
- H.R. 2982 (95th): An Act to suspend until the close of June 30, 1980, the duty on synthetic tantalum/columbium concentrate, and for other purposes.
- H.R. 1645 (94th): A bill for the relief of Kevin Patrick Saunders.
- H.R. 1600 (94th): A bill to establish the Frederick Law Olmsted Home and Office in Brookline, Mass., as a national historic site.
Does 4 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
Drinan sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (30%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) Energy (14%) International Affairs (10%) Environmental Protection (9%) Taxation (8%) Commerce (8%) Health (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Drinan recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 8411 (96th): Nuclear Powerplant Cost Assurance Act of 1980
- H.R. 8285 (96th): Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act of 1980
- H.R. 8065 (96th): A bill to amend title 18 of the United States Code to …
- H.R. 8049 (96th): A bill to amend title 18 of the United States Code to …
- H.R. 7817 (96th): A bill to amend or disapprove certain amendments to the Federal Rules …
- H.R. 7473 (96th): A bill to amend the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to provide …
- H.R. 7019 (96th): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to increase …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1971 to Dec 1980, Drinan missed 163 of 5,816 roll call votes, which is 2.8%. This is better than the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1980. 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
