Sen. Lloyd Bentsen

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Bentsen is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate 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 Bentsen sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 25, 1989 to Dec 1, 1994. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Bentsen was the primary sponsor of 47 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1181 (102nd): A bill for the relief of Christy Carl Hallien of Arlington, Texas.
• S. 2122 (102nd): Tax Extension Act of 1991
• S. 2042 (102nd): Tax Extension Act of 1991
• S. 1881 (102nd): A bill to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to provide appropriate procedures for the appointment of the Chairman of the United States International Trade Commission.
• S.J.Res. 78 (102nd): A joint resolution to designate the month of November 1991 and 1992 as “National Hospice Month”.
• S.J.Res. 134 (102nd): A joint resolution designating May 22, 1991, as National Desert Storm Reservists Day”.
• S. 251 (102nd): An original bill to extend the time for performing certain acts under the internal revenue laws for individuals performing services as part of the Desert Shield operation.

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Does 47 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

Bentsen sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Foreign Trade and International Finance (21%) Health (20%) Taxation (14%) Social Welfare (12%) Environmental Protection (9%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Education (8%) Private Legislation (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Bentsen recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 3274 (102nd): Medicare and Medicaid Amendments Act of 1992
• S. 3230 (102nd): Treasury Forfeiture Fund Act of 1992
• S. 3122 (102nd): Gulf of Mexico Commission Act of 1992
• S. 3120 (102nd): Medicaid Technical Corrections and Clarification Act of 1992
• S. 3078 (102nd): Biomedical Research in Space Act of 1992
• S. 3054 (102nd): A bill to provide temporary duty-free treatment for certain digital processing units.
• S. 3041 (102nd): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to establish …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Feb 1971 to Oct 1992, Bentsen missed 1,127 of 9,969 roll call votes, which is 11.3%. This is much worse than the median of 4.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1992. 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
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills