![Photo of Sen. Robert Taft [R-OH, 1971-1976]](/static/legislator-photos/410600-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Taft is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1976 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 Taft sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Taft was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- S. 3146 (94th): A bill for the relief of Leo J. Conway.
- S. 1625 (93rd): A bill to extend until November 1, 1978, the existing exemption of the steamboat Delta Queen from certain vessel laws.
Does 2 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
Taft sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Private Legislation (26%) Transportation and Public Works (13%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (11%) Labor and Employment (11%) Social Welfare (11%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Taxation (9%) Economics and Public Finance (9%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Taft recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 3840 (94th): A bill for the relief of Wing Fai Yan.
- S. 3809 (94th): A bill for the relief of Deborah Worrell.
- S. 3789 (94th): A bill for the relief of Mrs. Chong Sun Yi Rauch.
- S.Res. 478 (94th): A resolution to recognize and honor Revolutionary War dead who helped build …
- S. 3582 (94th): A bill to amend section 1631 (a) of the Social Security Act.
- S. 3581 (94th): A bill to establish an Office of Maritime Affairs Coordinator in the …
- S. 3419 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish and …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1971 to Oct 1976, Taft missed 765 of 3,404 roll call votes, which is 22.5%. This is much worse than the median of 13.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1976. 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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
