Thomas Railsback, former Representative for Illinois's 19th Congressional District

Railsback was the representative for Illinois’s 19^th congressional district as a Republican. He served from 1967 to 1982.

Photo of Rep. Thomas Railsback [R-IL19, 1967-1982]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Railsback is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1982 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Railsback sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1977 to Dec 21, 1982. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Railsback was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:

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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

Railsback sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (27%) Crime and Law Enforcement (21%) Taxation (12%) Labor and Employment (10%) Law (10%) Commerce (8%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (8%) Arts, Culture, Religion (6%)

Recent Bills

Some of Railsback’s most recently sponsored bills include...

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1967 to Dec 1982, Railsback missed 1,104 of 7,549 roll call votes, which is 14.6%. This is much worse than the median of 7.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1982. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1967 Jan-Mar	31	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Apr-Jun	57	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Jul-Sep	59	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Oct-Dec	98	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Jan-Mar	38	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Apr-Jun	79	1	1.3%	29^th
1968 Jul-Sep	91	2	2.2%	32^nd
1968 Oct-Oct	25	9	36.0%	92^nd
1969 Jan-Mar	16	1	6.2%	55^th
1969 Apr-Jun	28	7	25.0%	86^th
1969 Jul-Sep	45	5	11.1%	57^th
1969 Oct-Dec	88	16	18.2%	74^th
1970 Jan-Mar	35	4	11.4%	56^th
1970 Apr-Jun	74	24	32.4%	85^th
1970 Jul-Sep	76	6	7.9%	35^th
1970 Oct-Dec	81	19	23.5%	70^th
1971 Jan-Mar	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	90	26	28.9%	93^rd
1971 Jul-Sep	74	10	13.5%	69^th
1971 Oct-Dec	134	31	23.1%	84^th
1972 Jan-Mar	64	10	15.6%	72^nd
1972 Apr-Jun	114	21	18.4%	72^nd
1972 Jul-Sep	101	28	27.7%	88^th
1972 Oct-Oct	50	8	16.0%	58^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	3	8.3%	55^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	38	19.9%	87^th
1973 Jul-Sep	131	9	6.9%	63^rd
1973 Oct-Dec	182	27	14.8%	84^th
1974 Jan-Mar	79	8	10.1%	60^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	14	8.2%	43^rd
1974 Jul-Sep	148	15	10.1%	80^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	19	13.5%	66^th
1975 Jan-Mar	68	15	22.1%	93^rd
1975 Apr-Jun	199	38	19.1%	93^rd
1975 Jul-Sep	154	19	12.3%	80^th
1975 Oct-Dec	191	23	12.0%	83^rd
1976 Jan-Mar	106	8	7.5%	58^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	54	20.2%	85^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	24	8.5%	62^nd
1976 Oct-Oct	7	1	14.3%	72^nd
1977 Jan-Mar	100	31	31.0%	98^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	67	24.5%	96^th
1977 Jul-Sep	198	22	11.1%	76^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	21	15.6%	83^rd
1978 Jan-Mar	150	1	0.7%	5^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	33	11.0%	63^rd
1978 Jul-Sep	308	38	12.3%	68^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	14	18.4%	87^th
1979 Jan-Mar	63	4	6.3%	61^st
1979 Apr-Jun	221	21	9.5%	64^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	30	15.2%	84^th
1979 Oct-Dec	190	25	13.2%	67^th
1980 Jan-Mar	148	19	12.8%	70^th
1980 Apr-Jun	197	44	22.3%	93^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	192	38	19.8%	89^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	10	14.9%	62^nd
1981 Jan-Mar	15	1	6.7%	44^th
1981 Apr-Jun	90	15	16.7%	83^rd
1981 Jul-Sep	106	12	11.3%	78^th
1981 Oct-Dec	142	11	7.7%	54^th
1982 Feb-Mar	48	8	16.7%	74^th
1982 Apr-Jun	119	8	6.7%	61^st
1982 Jul-Sep	193	38	19.7%	86^th
1982 Oct-Dec	99	50	50.5%	96^th

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

Rep. Thomas Railsback

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