Sen. Thomas “Tom” Harkin

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2014 Report Card for Harkin.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Harkin is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2014 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 Harkin sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2009 to Dec 12, 2014. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Harkin was the primary sponsor of 45 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 2917 (113th): Adding Ebola to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act
• S. 309 (113th): A bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the World War II members of the Civil Air Patrol.
• S. 1302 (113th): Cooperative and Small Employer Charity Pension Flexibility Act
• S. 1284 (113th): Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014
• S. 622 (113th): Animal Drug and Animal Generic Drug User Fee Reauthorization Act of 2013
• S. 959 (113th): Pharmaceutical Quality, Security, and Accountability Act
• S. 3187 (112th): Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act

View All »

Does 45 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

Harkin sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Education (24%) Health (24%) Labor and Employment (17%) Taxation (10%) Transportation and Public Works (9%) Economics and Public Finance (6%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (6%) Agriculture and Food (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Harkin recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 3020 (113th): A bill to establish the composition known as America the Beautiful as …
• S.Res. 595 (113th): A resolution recognizing Nobel Laureates Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their …
• S. 2954 (113th): Higher Education Affordability Act
• S. 2917 (113th): Adding Ebola to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act
• S. 2889 (113th): Universal Home Design Act of 2014
• S. 2887 (113th): Accessible Transportation for All Act
• S. 2888 (113th): Exercise and Fitness For All Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1985 to Dec 2014, Harkin missed 401 of 10,103 roll call votes, which is 4.0%. This is worse than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 2014. 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
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills