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]](/static/legislator-photos/410586-200px.jpeg)
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 from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 1, 1976. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Symington was the primary sponsor of 8 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 3730 (94th): Military Construction Authorization Act
- S. 3548 (93rd): Harry S. Truman Memorial Scholarship Act
- S. 3802 (93rd): A bill to provide available nuclear information to Committees and Members of Congress.
- S. 2714 (93rd): An original bill to amend section 291(b) of the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement Act of 1964 for Certain Employees, relating to cost-of-living increase, and to increase the ...
- S. 2166 (93rd): A bill to authorize the disposal of opium from the national stockpile.
- S. 2498 (93rd): A bill to authorize the disposal of zinc from the national stockpile and the supplemental stockpile.
- S. 2408 (93rd): Military Construction Authorization Act
Does 8 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
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...
- S.Res. 566 (94th): A resolution relating to the consideration of H.R. 15136.
- S. 3767 (94th): A bill for the relief of Opal Garnet Branch.
- S. 3730 (94th): Military Construction Authorization Act
- S. 3434 (94th): Military Construction Authorization Act
- S.Res. 282 (94th): A resolution citing Bob Hope an American Patriot.
- S. 2350 (94th): A bill to amend the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, ...
- S. 781 (94th): A bill to reduce the salaries of Senators, Members of the House ...
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.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
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
