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Rep. Sidney Yates

Former Representative for Illinois’s 9th District

Yates was the representative for Illinois’s 9th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1965 to 1998.

He was previously the representative for Illinois’s 9th congressional district as a Democrat from 1949 to 1962.

Photo of Rep. Sidney Yates [D-IL9, 1965-1998]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Yates is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1998 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 Yates sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 5, 1993 to Dec 17, 1998. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Yates was the primary sponsor of 25 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 25 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

Yates sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Crime and Law Enforcement (22%) Government Operations and Politics (20%) Law (16%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (12%) Immigration (10%) International Affairs (10%) Transportation and Public Works (6%) Commerce (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Yates recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1949 to Dec 1998, Yates missed 1,376 of 17,528 roll call votes, which is 7.9%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1998. 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: