Rep. Robert Smith Walker

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Walker is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives 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 Walker sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Walker was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 4138 (104th): Hydrogen Future Act of 1996
• H.R. 3060 (104th): Antarctic Science, Tourism, and Conservation Act of 1996
• H.R. 3379 (98th): A bill to name a United States Post Office in the vicinity of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the “Edwin D. Eshleman Post Office”.
• H.R. 4350 (97th): A bill for the relief of Arthur J. Grauf.
• H.R. 7604 (95th): A bill for the relief of Margaret Somerville Jefferis.

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Does 5 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

Walker sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (18%) Science, Technology, Communications (14%) Environmental Protection (14%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (13%) Economics and Public Finance (12%) Commerce (10%) Labor and Employment (10%) Taxation (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Walker recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 4138 (104th): Hydrogen Future Act of 1996
• H.Con.Res. 211 (104th): Directing the Clerk of the House of Representatives to make a technical …
• H.R. 4013 (104th): To amend section 2118 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to …
• H.R. 3951 (104th): To permit duty-free treatment for certain structures, parts, and components used in …
• H.R. 3952 (104th): To clarify that certain components of certain scientific instruments and apparatus shall …
• H.R. 3936 (104th): Space Commercialization Promotion Act of 1996
• H.J.Res. 181 (104th): Disapproving the extension of nondiscriminatory treatment (most-favored-nation treatment) to the products of …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1977 to Sep 1996, Walker missed 260 of 10,661 roll call votes, which is 2.4%. This is on par with the median of 2.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Sep 1996. 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
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills