Sen. Strom Thurmond

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Thurmond is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2002 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 Thurmond sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 1997 to Nov 20, 2002. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Thurmond was the primary sponsor of 95 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 2057 (105th): Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999
• S. 1812 (105th): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999
• S. 1507 (105th): A bill to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 to make certain technical corrections.
• S. 813 (105th): Veterans’ Cemetery Protection Act of 1997
• S. 936 (105th): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998
• S. 450 (105th): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999
• S. 1764 (104th): Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997

View All »

Does 95 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

Thurmond sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Foreign Trade and International Finance (29%) Commerce (12%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Law (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (10%) Environmental Protection (10%) Crime and Law Enforcement (8%) Education (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Thurmond recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 14 (107th): A bill to amend the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 to extend …
• S. 2898 (107th): A bill for the relief of Jaya Gulab Tolani and Hitesh Gulab …
• S. 2865 (107th): Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park Act of 2002
• S.Res. 305 (107th): A resolution designating the week beginning September 15, 2002, as “National Historically …
• S. 2616 (107th): Men’s Health Act of 2002
• S. 2546 (107th): Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act
• S. 2453 (107th): A bill to provide for the disposition of weapons-usable plutonium at the …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1955 to Nov 2002, Thurmond missed 823 of 17,104 roll call votes, which is 4.8%. This is much worse than the median of 1.8% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Nov 2002. 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