Sen. Trent Lott
Former Senator for Mississippi
Lott was a senator from Mississippi and was a Republican. He served from 1989 to 2007.
He was previously the representative for Mississippi’s 5th congressional district as a Republican from 1973 to 1988.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Lott is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2008 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 Lott sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 11, 2008. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Lott was the primary sponsor of 28 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 2116 (109th): Supreme Court Grounds Transfer Act of 2005
- S. 1786 (109th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to make emergency airport improvement project grants-in-aid under title 49, United States Code, for repairs and costs related to …
- S. 1175 (107th): Vicksburg National Military Park Boundary Modification Act of 2002
- S. 1190 (107th): A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to rename the education individual retirement accounts as the Coverdell education savings account.
- S. 360 (107th): Paul Coverdell bill
- S. 279 (107th): A bill affecting the representation of the majority and minority membership of the Senate Members of the Joint Economic Committee.
- S. 710 (106th): Vicksburg Campaign Trail Battlefields Preservation Act of 2000
Does 28 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
Lott sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (27%) Transportation and Public Works (13%) Commerce (12%) Law (11%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Finance and Financial Sector (11%) Taxation (9%) Environmental Protection (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Lott recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 2293 (110th): Individual Alternative Minimum Tax Repeal Act of 2007
- S. 2086 (110th): SCHIP Extension Act of 2007
- S.Res. 318 (110th): A resolution supporting the We Don’t Serve Teens campaign.
- S.Res. 313 (110th): A resolution supporting the We Don’t Serve Teens campaign.
- S. 1890 (110th): Flood Insurance Choice Act of 2007
- S.Res. 159 (110th): A resolution commending the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting on its 50th …
- S. 1126 (110th): Gulf of Mexico Restoration and Protection Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 1989 to Dec 2007, Lott missed 176 of 6,510 roll call votes, which is 2.7%. This is worse than the median of 2.2% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 2007. 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.
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