Sen. William Proxmire

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Proxmire is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1988 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 Proxmire sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 26, 1983 to Oct 22, 1988. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Proxmire was the primary sponsor of 36 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S.J.Res. 252 (100th): A joint resolution designating June 5-11, 1988, as “National NHS Neighbor Works Week”.
• S. 825 (100th): Housing and Community Development Act of 1987
• S.J.Res. 175 (99th): A joint resolution to designate the week of August 25, 1985, through August 31, 1985, as “National CPR Awareness Week”.
• S. 1019 (99th): A bill to authorize the inclusion of certain additional lands within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
• S. 277 (98th): A bill for the relief of Marlon Dolon Opelt.
• S. 1838 (97th): An act for the relief of Cesar Noel Jump.
• S. 1890 (97th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to disburse certain trust funds of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior or Chippewa Indians of …

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Does 36 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

Proxmire sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (22%) Finance and Financial Sector (19%) Armed Forces and National Security (13%) Environmental Protection (11%) International Affairs (11%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Health (8%) Social Welfare (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Proxmire recently introduced the following legislation:

• S.Res. 504 (100th): A resolution commending Ronald L. Tammen for his service to the U.S. …
• S.Res. 503 (100th): A resolution commending Kenneth A. Mclean for his service to the Senate.
• S. 2758 (100th): Government Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act of 1988
• S. 2715 (100th): Emergency Bank Consolidation Act of 1988
• S.Res. 452 (100th): To stop the growth of insolvent thrift institutions.
• S. 2566 (100th): Trust Indenture Reform Act of 1988
• S. 2554 (100th): Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Amendments of 1988

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Aug 1957 to Oct 1988, Proxmire missed 16 of 12,127 roll call votes, which is 0.1%. This is better than the median of 5.9% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1988. 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
• 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