Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Ford 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 Ford sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1989 to Nov 29, 1994. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Ford was the primary sponsor of 26 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 2884 (103rd): School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994
- H.R. 2683 (103rd): To extend the operation of the migrant student record transfer system.
- H.R. 1 (103rd): Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
- H.R. 5925 (102nd): EEOC Education, Technical Assistance, and Training Revolving Fund Act of 1992
- H.R. 1285 (102nd): Higher Education Technical Amendments of 1991
- H.R. 4174 (101st): Administrative Office of the United States Courts Personnel Act of 1990
- H.R. 4872 (101st): National Advisory Council on the Public Service Act of 1990
Does 26 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
Ford sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Education (22%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Labor and Employment (16%) Health (14%) Commerce (8%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Law (8%) Crime and Law Enforcement (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Ford recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 5166 (103rd): Reemployment Act of 1994
- H.J.Res. 352 (103rd): Designating November 1994 as “National American Lacemaker Month”.
- H.Con.Res. 230 (103rd): To correct an error in the enrollment of the bill H.R. 1804.
- H.R. 4072 (103rd): Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Amendments Act
- H.R. 4050 (103rd): Reemployment Act of 1994
- H.Res. 345 (103rd): Providing amounts from the contingent fund of the House for expenses of …
- H.R. 3396 (103rd): Retirement Protection Act of 1994
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1965 to Nov 1994, Ford missed 2,266 of 13,636 roll call votes, which is 16.6%. 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
