Rep. Robert Matsui

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Matsui is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2004 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 Matsui sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1999 to Dec 7, 2004. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Matsui was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:

• H.J.Res. 388 (102nd): Designating the month of May 1992 as “National Foster Care Month”.
• H.J.Res. 154 (102nd): Designating the month of May 1991, as “National Foster Care Month”.
• H.R. 1152 (98th): A bill for the relief of Tomoko Jessica Kyan.
• H.R. 7065 (97th): A bill to amend the Community Services Block Grant Act to clarify the authority of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to designate community action agencies …
• H.R. 5021 (97th): A bill to extend the date for the submission to the Congress of the report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians.
• H.R. 2573 (97th): A bill for the relief of Moses Bank.

View All »

Does 6 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

Matsui sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (17%) Commerce (13%) Finance and Financial Sector (13%) Government Operations and Politics (13%) Social Welfare (13%) Labor and Employment (11%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (10%) Economics and Public Finance (10%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Matsui recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.J.Res. 99 (108th): Providing for the appointment of Eli Broad as a citizen regent of …
• H.R. 892 (108th): Sacramento Public Safety Act of 2003
• H.R. 5432 (107th): To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to require the same …
• H.R. 5088 (107th): Executive Accountability Act of 2002
• H.R. 4857 (107th): Child Support Reinvestment Act of 2002
• H.R. 4780 (107th): Rejection of Social Security Privatization Act of 2002
• H.R. 4671 (107th): Social Security Widow’s Benefit Guarantee Act of 2002

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1979 to Dec 2004, Matsui missed 575 of 13,739 roll call votes, which is 4.2%. This is worse than the median of 2.9% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2004. 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...

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