Neal was the representative for North Carolina’s 5th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1994.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Neal is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1994 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 Neal sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1989 to Nov 29, 1994. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Neal was the primary sponsor of 11 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 3841 (103rd): Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994
- H.R. 158 (102nd): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located on Highway 64 East in Hiddenite, North Carolina, as the “Zora Leah S. Thomas Post Office”.
- H.J.Res. 415 (101st): Calling for the United States to encourage immediate negotiations toward a new agreement among Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties, for the full protection of Antarctica as a global …
- H.J.Res. 383 (100th): A joint resolution designating March 25, 1988 as “Greek Independence Day: A National Day of Celebration of Greek and American Democracy”.
- H.R. 5548 (99th): Export-Import Bank Act Amendments of 1986
- H.R. 5970 (96th): A bill to amend the Bretton Woods Agreements Act to authorize consent to an increase in the United States quota in the International Monetary Fund.
- H.R. 9214 (95th): A bill to amend the Bretton Woods Agreement Act to authorize the United States to participate in the Supplementary Financing Facility of the International Monetary Fund.
Does 11 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
Neal sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Taxation (25%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Social Welfare (14%) Finance and Financial Sector (12%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Health (7%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Neal recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4956 (103rd): Financial Services Competitiveness Act
- H.R. 3841 (103rd): Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994
- H.R. 2895 (103rd): Social Security Disability Review Standards Act of 1993
- H.R. 788 (103rd): To eliminate the exemption for Congress from the application of certain provisions …
- H.J.Res. 56 (103rd): Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that, …
- H.R. 260 (103rd): To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the …
- H.R. 257 (103rd): Health Care Crisis Policy Commission Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Nov 1994, Neal missed 1,031 of 10,590 roll call votes, which is 9.7%. This is much worse than the median of 3.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Nov 1994. 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
- 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
