Ridge was the representative for Pennsylvania’s 21st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1983 to 1994.
![Photo of Rep. Thomas Ridge [R-PA21, 1983-1994]](/static/legislator-photos/409219-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Ridge is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1994 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 Ridge sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1989 to Nov 29, 1994. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Ridge was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2761 (101st): United Services Organization’s 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act
- H.R. 2707 (100th): Major Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Amendments of 1987
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
Ridge sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Foreign Trade and International Finance (19%) Finance and Financial Sector (19%) Housing and Community Development (16%) Environmental Protection (16%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Taxation (9%) Labor and Employment (6%) Agriculture and Food (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Ridge recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.Con.Res. 224 (103rd): Requesting the President to designate Victoria Van Meter as an honorary goodwill …
- H.R. 3793 (103rd): Community Enterprise Revitalization Amendments Act
- H.R. 3043 (103rd): Industrial and Commercial Land Recycling Act
- H.R. 1368 (103rd): To establish the Congressional Office of Inspector General.
- H.R. 691 (103rd): Competitiveness Tax Credit Act
- H.R. 6131 (102nd): Federal Commercial Credit Marketing Corporation Act of 1992
- H.R. 6120 (102nd): To exclude unemployment compensation received during 1992 by low-or moderate-income individuals from …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1983 to Nov 1994, Ridge missed 468 of 5,693 roll call votes, which is 8.2%. This is much worse than the median of 3.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Nov 1994. 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.
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
