Sen. William Warren “Bill” Bradley

Former Senator for New Jersey

Bradley was a senator from New Jersey and was a Democrat. He served from 1979 to 1996.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. William Warren “Bill” Bradley [D-NJ, 1979-1996]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Bradley is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1996 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 Bradley sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Bradley was the primary sponsor of 31 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 31 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

Bradley sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Foreign Trade and International Finance (20%) Economics and Public Finance (16%) Government Operations and Politics (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (12%) Health (11%) Taxation (9%) Environmental Protection (9%) Commerce (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Bradley recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Feb 1979 to Oct 1996, Bradley missed 506 of 7,052 roll call votes, which is 7.2%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1996. 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...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1979 Feb-Mar	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	1	0.8%	8^th
1979 Jul-Sep	171	6	3.5%	22^nd
1979 Oct-Dec	184	13	7.1%	38^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	11	16.4%	81^st
1980 Apr-Jun	216	39	18.1%	84^th
1980 Jul-Sep	179	18	10.1%	73^rd
1980 Oct-Dec	84	12	14.3%	65^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	4	7.0%	77^th
1981 Apr-Jun	125	9	7.2%	86^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	18	14.8%	95^th
1981 Oct-Dec	193	16	8.3%	70^th
1982 Feb-Mar	79	1	1.3%	27^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	2	1.6%	30^th
1982 Jul-Sep	177	1	0.6%	14^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	2	2.3%	48^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Apr-Jun	122	4	3.3%	52^nd
1983 Jul-Sep	92	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Oct-Nov	103	6	5.8%	48^th
1984 Jan-Mar	45	11	24.4%	89^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	14	9.7%	80^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	4	5.9%	50^th
1984 Oct-Oct	34	8	23.5%	96^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	3	13.6%	94^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	6	5.2%	71^st
1985 Jul-Sep	60	10	16.7%	94^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	16	8.7%	83^rd
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	54^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	8	7.8%	83^rd
1986 Jul-Sep	149	17	11.4%	96^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	1	1.8%	60^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	5	10.0%	83^rd
1987 Apr-Jun	123	17	13.8%	88^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	5	4.2%	53^rd
1987 Oct-Dec	127	10	7.9%	80^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	5	6.0%	37^th
1988 Apr-Jun	137	10	7.3%	83^rd
1988 Jul-Sep	127	14	11.0%	87^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	4	12.9%	73^rd
1989 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	5	6.5%	93^rd
1989 Jul-Sep	118	1	0.8%	52^nd
1989 Oct-Nov	91	11	12.1%	93^rd
1990 Jan-Mar	48	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Apr-Jun	95	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Jul-Sep	114	1	0.9%	57^th
1990 Oct-Oct	69	2	2.9%	81^st
1991 Jan-Mar	41	3	7.3%	89^th
1991 Apr-Jun	74	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Jul-Sep	96	4	4.2%	86^th
1991 Oct-Nov	69	8	11.6%	91^st
1992 Jan-Mar	61	4	6.6%	88^th
1992 Apr-Jun	74	11	14.9%	95^th
1992 Jul-Sep	117	9	7.7%	92^nd
1992 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Feb-Mar	93	1	1.1%	56^th
1993 Apr-Jun	99	6	6.1%	80^th
1993 Jul-Sep	109	7	6.4%	94^th
1993 Oct-Nov	94	2	2.1%	60^th
1994 Jan-Mar	86	11	12.8%	92^nd
1994 Apr-Jun	92	1	1.1%	37^th
1994 Jul-Sep	136	3	2.2%	54^th
1994 Oct-Dec	15	3	20.0%	96^th
1995 Jan-Mar	125	8	6.4%	85^th
1995 Apr-Jun	171	6	3.5%	84^th
1995 Jul-Sep	184	24	13.0%	99^th
1995 Oct-Dec	133	19	14.3%	99^th
1996 Jan-Mar	60	17	28.3%	98^th
1996 Apr-Jun	122	2	1.6%	74^th
1996 Jul-Sep	121	4	3.3%	84^th
1996 Oct-Oct	3	0	0.0%	0^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
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