Rep. William Blaine Richardson

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

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

Enacted Legislation

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

• H.R. 434 (105th): To provide for the conveyance of small parcels of land in the Carson National Forest and the Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico, to the village of …
• H.R. 4108 (104th): Wildfire Suppression Aircraft Transfer Act of 1996
• H.R. 517 (104th): Chacoan Outliers Protection Act of 1995
• H.R. 4709 (103rd): To make certain technical corrections, and for other purposes.
• H.R. 4833 (103rd): American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994
• H.R. 4842 (103rd): Indian Self-Determination Act Amendments of 1994
• H.R. 4230 (103rd): American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994

View All »

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

Richardson sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (22%) Environmental Protection (14%) Economics and Public Finance (14%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (12%) Native Americans (12%) Health (11%) Law (8%) Commerce (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Richardson recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 732 (105th): To authorize an appropriation for the construction of a public museum located …
• H.R. 555 (105th): Native American Telecommunications Act of 1997
• H.R. 489 (105th): Park Renewal Fund Act
• H.R. 488 (105th): To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to enter into an agreement …
• H.R. 486 (105th): Native American Telecommunications Act of 1997
• H.R. 485 (105th): To appropriate funds for the purpose of implementing the compromise between the …
• H.R. 487 (105th): Minority Health Improvement Act of 1997

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1983 to Feb 1997, Richardson missed 291 of 7,054 roll call votes, which is 4.1%. This is worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Feb 1997. 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
• 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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills