Rep. Thomas “Tip” O’Neill

Enacted Legislation

O’Neill was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• H.J.Res. 1119 (94th): Joint resolution to provide for the convening of the first session of the Ninety-fifth Congress.
• H.R. 13789 (94th): A bill to authorize the Architect of the Capitol to perform certain work on and maintain the historical sections of the Congressional Cemetery for a 2-year period, …
• H.R. 12339 (94th): A bill to authorize the Administrator of General Services to convey certain land in Cambridge, Mass., to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
• H.J.Res. 749 (94th): Joint resolution to provide for the beginning of the second session of the ninety-fourth Congress and for other purposes.
• H.R. 14174 (93rd): A bill to authorize the Secretary of State or such officer as he may designate to conclude an agreement with the People’s Republic of China for indemnification …
• H.J.Res. 736 (93rd): Joint resolution to provide for a feasibility study and to accept a gift from the United States Capitol Historical Society.
• H.J.Res. 758 (93rd): Joint resolution authorizing the securing of storage space for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives. and the Office of the Architect of the Capitol.

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Does 8 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

O’Neill recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.Res. 611 (98th): A resolution electing the Honorable Jim Wright, a Representative from the State …
• H.J.Res. 1119 (94th): Joint resolution to provide for the convening of the first session of …
• H.Con.Res. 707 (94th): A concurrent resolution providing for the adjournment of Congress from August 10 …
• H.Res. 1429 (94th): A resolution concerning subpoenas duces tecum directing witnesses to appear before the …
• H.R. 14878 (94th): Omnibus Energy Conservation Act
• H.Res. 1411 (94th): A resolution providing for the election as member of Committee on the …
• H.R. 14696 (94th): Omnibus Energy Conservation Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1953 to Oct 1986, O’Neill missed 565 of 5,481 roll call votes, which is 10.3%. This is worse than the median of 6.2% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1986. 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.

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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
• 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