![Photo of Sen. William Sebastian Cohen [R-ME, 1979-1996]](/static/legislator-photos/402727-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Cohen 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 Cohen sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Cohen was the primary sponsor of 15 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 2153 (104th): A bill to designate the United States Post Office building located in Brewer, Maine, as the “Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Post Office Building”, and for other purposes.
- S. 699 (104th): Office of Government Ethics Authorization Act of 1996
- S. 1311 (103rd): A bill for the relief of Olga D. Zhondetskaya.
- S. 374 (102nd): Aroostook Band of Micmacs Settlement Act
- S. 496 (100th): Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988
- S. 2248 (100th): A bill to designate the United States Courthouse located at 156 Federal Street in Portland, maine, as the “Edward Thaxter Gignoux United States Courthouse.
- S. 2750 (99th): Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians Supplementary Claims Settlement Act of 1986
Does 15 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
Cohen sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (19%) Health (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (13%) Finance and Financial Sector (13%) Commerce (11%) Law (10%) Social Welfare (10%) Economics and Public Finance (9%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Cohen recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 2153 (104th): A bill to designate the United States Post Office building located in …
- S. 1586 (104th): A bill for the relief of Nancy B. Wilson.
- S. 1525 (104th): Economic Espionage and Protection of Proprietary Economic Information Act of 1995
- S. 1501 (104th): Protecting Class Action Plaintiffs Act of 1995
- S. 1088 (104th): Health Care Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 1995
- S. 1067 (104th): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide …
- S. 1057 (104th): A bill to amend section 1956 of title 18, United States Code …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1979 to Oct 1996, Cohen missed 269 of 7,052 roll call votes, which is 3.8%. This is on par with 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.
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
