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Sen. Steven Symms

Former Senator for Idaho

Symms was a senator from Idaho and was a Republican. He served from 1981 to 1992.

He was previously the representative for Idaho’s 1st congressional district as a Republican from 1973 to 1980.

Photo of Sen. Steven Symms [R-ID, 1981-1992]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Symms is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1992 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 Symms sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 8, 1992. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Symms was the primary sponsor of 12 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 12 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

Symms sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (31%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (13%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (13%) Transportation and Public Works (9%) Health (9%) Environmental Protection (8%) Social Welfare (8%) International Affairs (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Symms recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1981 to Oct 1992, Symms missed 239 of 4,355 roll call votes, which is 5.5%. This is on par with the median of 4.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1992. 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: