Schiff was the representative for New Mexico’s 1st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1989 to 1998.
![Photo of Rep. Steven Schiff [R-NM1, 1989-1998]](/static/legislator-photos/409633-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Schiff 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 Schiff sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 5, 1993 to Dec 17, 1998. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Schiff was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 1273 (105th): National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 1998
- H.R. 745 (101st): Petroglyph National Monument Establishment Act of 1989
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
Schiff sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (22%) Economics and Public Finance (16%) Science, Technology, Communications (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (11%) Law (11%) Commerce (10%) Finance and Financial Sector (8%) Social Welfare (8%)
Recent Bills
Some of Schiff’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.Res. 389 (105th): Celebrating the “New Mexico Cuartocentenario”, the 400th anniversary commemoration of the first ...
- H.R. 2361 (105th): To amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to the “three ...
- H.R. 1424 (105th): Petroglyph National Monument Boundary Adjustment Act
- H.R. 1272 (105th): Fire Administration Authorization Act of 1997
- H.R. 1273 (105th): National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 1998
- H.R. 797 (105th): To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to reduce the ...
- H.Con.Res. 227 (104th): Expressing the sense of Congress that the technology program at the National ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1989 to Mar 1998, Schiff missed 751 of 5,008 roll call votes, which is 15.0%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Mar 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 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
