Packwood was a senator from Oregon and was a Republican. He served from 1969 to 1995.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
On Sep. 5, 1995, the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigated Packwood for sexual misconduct and abuse of power and recommended expulsion from the Senate. On Sep. 8, 1995, he resigned.
Sep. 5, 1995 | Senate Select Committee on Ethics recommended expulsion from the Senate |
Sep. 8, 1995 | Resigned. |
![Photo of Sen. Robert Packwood [R-OR, 1969-1995]](/static/legislator-photos/408420-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Packwood is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate 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 Packwood sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Packwood was the primary sponsor of 48 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S.J.Res. 329 (102nd): A joint resolution to designate February 4, 1993 and February 3, 1994, as “National Women and Girls in Sports Day”.
- S.J.Res. 239 (102nd): A joint resolution designating February 6, 1992, as “National Women and Girls in Sports Day”.
- S.J.Res. 66 (102nd): A joint resolution to designate February 7, 1991, as “National Women and Girls in Sports Day”.
- S.J.Res. 357 (101st): A joint resolution to designate September 15, 1990 to October 15, 1990 as “Community Center Month”.
- S.J.Res. 42 (101st): A joint resolution to designate March 16, 1989, as “Freedom of Information Day”.
- S.J.Res. 32 (101st): A joint resolution to designate February 2, 1989, as “National Women and Girls in Sports Day”.
- S.J.Res. 340 (100th): A designating November 27 through December 3, 1988, as “National Sir Winston Churchill Recognition Week”.
Does 48 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
Packwood sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Taxation (27%) Health (18%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (12%) Social Welfare (11%) Sports and Recreation (9%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Economics and Public Finance (7%) Environmental Protection (7%)
Recent Bills
Some of Packwood’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S.Res. 165 (104th): A resolution commending the 60th anniversary of the Social Security Act.
- S.Con.Res. 19 (104th): A concurrent resolution to correct the enrollment of the bill H.R. 483.
- S. 785 (104th): A bill to require the Trustees of the medicare trust funds to ...
- S. 750 (104th): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to properly ...
- S. 739 (104th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to issue a certificate ...
- S.Res. 37 (104th): A resolution designating February 2, 1995, and February 1, 1996, as “National ...
- S.Res. 36 (104th): An original resolution authorizing expenditures by the Committee on Finance.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1969 to Sep 1995, Packwood missed 1,034 of 11,839 roll call votes, which is 8.7%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Sep 1995. 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.
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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills