William “Stuart” Symington, former Senator for Missouri

Symington was a senator from Missouri and was a Democrat. He served from 1953 to 1976.

Photo of Sen. William “Stuart” Symington [D-MO, 1953-1976]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Symington is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1976 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Symington sponsored and cosponsored. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Symington was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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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

Symington sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Armed Forces and National Security (33%) Government Operations and Politics (24%) Private Legislation (14%) Housing and Community Development (10%) Arts, Culture, Religion (10%) Energy (10%)

Recent Bills

Some of Symington’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1953 to Oct 1976, Symington missed 1,269 of 7,342 roll call votes, which is 17.3%. This is worse than the median of 13.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1976. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1953 Jan-Mar	9	1	11.1%	23^rd
1953 Apr-Jun	43	4	9.3%	46^th
1953 Jul-Jul	38	0	0.0%	0^th
1954 Jan-Mar	32	3	9.4%	85^th
1954 Apr-Jun	50	4	8.0%	46^th
1954 Jul-Sep	91	5	5.5%	54^th
1954 Dec-Dec	8	0	0.0%	0^th
1955 Jan-Mar	26	1	3.8%	44^th
1955 Apr-Jun	38	1	2.6%	17^th
1955 Jul-Aug	23	0	0.0%	0^th
1956 Jan-Mar	47	4	8.5%	78^th
1956 Apr-Jun	50	0	0.0%	0^th
1956 Jul-Jul	33	0	0.0%	0^th
1957 Jan-Mar	16	4	25.0%	95^th
1957 Apr-Jun	45	4	8.9%	48^th
1957 Jul-Aug	46	5	10.9%	82^nd
1958 Feb-Mar	38	5	13.2%	73^rd
1958 Apr-Jun	86	2	2.3%	27^th
1958 Jul-Aug	76	3	3.9%	45^th
1959 Jan-Apr	57	3	5.3%	66^th
1959 May-Aug	128	14	10.9%	61^st
1959 Sep-Sep	30	4	13.3%	76^th
1960 Jan-Apr	79	31	39.2%	91^st
1960 May-Aug	123	43	35.0%	94^th
1960 Sep-Sep	5	0	0.0%	0^th
1961 Jan-Apr	31	2	6.5%	64^th
1961 May-Aug	137	9	6.6%	59^th
1961 Sep-Sep	36	8	22.2%	76^th
1962 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	42^nd
1962 Apr-Jun	62	14	22.6%	84^th
1962 Jul-Sep	122	31	25.4%	89^th
1962 Oct-Oct	18	1	5.6%	42^nd
1963 Jan-Mar	8	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Apr-Jun	73	5	6.8%	44^th
1963 Jul-Sep	61	14	23.0%	73^rd
1963 Oct-Dec	87	5	5.7%	13^th
1964 Jan-Mar	60	5	8.3%	51^st
1964 Apr-Jun	138	8	5.8%	78^th
1964 Jul-Sep	106	9	8.5%	51^st
1964 Oct-Oct	1	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	32	3	9.4%	30^th
1965 Apr-Jun	106	32	30.2%	91^st
1965 Jul-Sep	106	12	11.3%	59^th
1965 Oct-Oct	15	3	20.0%	48^th
1966 Jan-Mar	28	2	7.1%	26^th
1966 Apr-Jun	56	7	12.5%	21^st
1966 Jul-Sep	119	10	8.4%	44^th
1966 Oct-Oct	35	16	45.7%	73^rd
1967 Jan-Mar	53	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Apr-Jun	70	5	7.1%	31^st
1967 Jul-Sep	81	31	38.3%	93^rd
1967 Oct-Dec	111	29	26.1%	70^th
1968 Jan-Mar	69	3	4.3%	11^th
1968 Apr-Jun	96	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Jul-Sep	89	4	4.5%	9^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	16	59.3%	74^th
1969 Jan-Mar	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Apr-Jun	26	1	3.8%	15^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	4	9.1%	51^st
1969 Oct-Dec	158	106	67.1%	97^th
1970 Jan-Mar	100	12	12.0%	48^th
1970 Apr-Jun	92	4	4.3%	17^th
1970 Jul-Sep	123	61	49.6%	86^th
1970 Oct-Dec	106	36	34.0%	71^st
1971 Feb-Mar	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	89	9	10.1%	19^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	7	6.4%	19^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	20	9.9%	39^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	1	0.8%	3^rd
1972 Apr-Jun	130	1	0.8%	3^rd
1972 Jul-Sep	206	6	2.9%	12^th
1972 Oct-Oct	75	0	0.0%	0^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	11	16.4%	66^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	7	3.6%	11^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	1	0.6%	4^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	70	41.7%	94^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	14	14.9%	66^th
1974 Apr-Jun	179	50	27.9%	90^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	14	10.1%	52^nd
1974 Oct-Dec	133	13	9.8%	42^nd
1975 Jan-Mar	118	37	31.4%	98^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	24	17.0%	72^nd
1975 Jul-Sep	170	42	24.7%	92^nd
1975 Oct-Dec	182	17	9.3%	46^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	29	26.6%	85^th
1976 Apr-Jun	263	157	59.7%	96^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	81	25.7%	78^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	8	61.5%	61^st

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
GPO.gov/FDSys, for sponsored bills

William “Stuart” Symington is pronounced:

The letters stand for sounds according to the following table:

Letter	Sounds As In

Capital letters indicate a stressed syllable.

Sen. William “Stuart” Symington

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