Mills was the representative for Arkansas’s 2nd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1939 to 1976.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Mills is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1976 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 Mills sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Mills was the primary sponsor of 11 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 17045 (93rd): Social Services Amendments
- H.R. 1820 (93rd): An Act to direct the Administrator of General Services to release certain conditions with respect to certain real property conveyed to the State of Arkansas by the ...
- H.R. 8214 (93rd): An Act to modify the tax treatment of members of the Armed Forces of the United States and civilian employees who are prisoners of war or missing ...
- H.R. 8217 (93rd): An Act to exempt from duty certain equipment and repairs for vessels operated by or for any agency of the United States where the entries were made ...
- H.R. 8215 (93rd): An Act to provide for the suspension of duty on certain copying shoe lathes until the close of June 30, 1976, and for other purposes.
- H.R. 1817 (93rd): A bill to provide for the striking of national medals to honor the late J. Edgar Hoover.
- H.R. 5874 (93rd): Federal Financing Bank Act
Does 11 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
Mills sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Foreign Trade and International Finance (24%) Immigration (16%) Social Welfare (15%) Taxation (14%) Government Operations and Politics (13%) Labor and Employment (7%) Economics and Public Finance (6%) Private Legislation (5%)
Recent Bills
Some of Mills’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 12985 (94th): A bill for the relief of Marcel John Justin Maury.
- H.R. 12318 (94th): A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to ...
- H.R. 11757 (94th): A bill to direct the Secretary of the Army to release certain ...
- H.R. 11631 (94th): A bill to amend title 38 of the United States Code to ...
- H.R. 10221 (94th): Local Fiscal Assistance Act
- H.R. 10176 (94th): A bill to amend the Tariff Schedules of the United States with ...
- H.R. 7250 (94th): A bill to increase the amount to be appropriated for the development ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1939 to Oct 1976, Mills missed 1,299 of 6,837 roll call votes, which is 19.0%. This is much worse than the median of 8.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1976. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
