Rep. Vito Fossella

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Fossella is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2008 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 Fossella sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 10, 2008. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

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

• H.R. 5440 (110th): FISA Amendments Act of 2008
• H.R. 2183 (109th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 567 Tompkins Avenue in Staten Island, New York, as the “Vincent Palladino Post Office”.
• H.R. 2771 (108th): To amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to reauthorize the New York City Watershed Protection Program.
• H.R. 3880 (107th): To provide a temporary waiver from certain transportation conformity requirements and metropolitan transportation planning requirements under the Clean Air Act and under other laws for certain areas …
• H.R. 1088 (107th): Investor and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act
• H.J.Res. 71 (107th): Patriot Day resolution
• H.R. 3557 (106th): To authorize the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York, in recognition of his accomplishments …

View All »

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

Issue Areas

Fossella sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (24%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) Economics and Public Finance (13%) Health (12%) Law (10%) Armed Forces and National Security (10%) Emergency Management (9%) Families (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Fossella recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 5906 (110th): Small Business Capitol Expansion and Improvement Act of 2008
• H.R. 5670 (110th): To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a Federal …
• H.R. 5440 (110th): FISA Amendments Act of 2008
• H.R. 4627 (110th): Homeowners’ Assistance Act of 2007
• H.R. 4224 (110th): To prohibit the Secretary of State from making a contribution to the …
• H.R. 4160 (110th): To withhold certain highway funds if a State does not comply with …
• H.R. 3898 (110th): To impose travel and other related restrictions on heads of state of …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Nov 1997 to Dec 2008, Fossella missed 472 of 7,133 roll call votes, which is 6.6%. This is much worse than the median of 3.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2008. 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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills