Rep. Joseph Waggonner

Former Representative for Louisiana’s 4^th District

Waggonner was the representative for Louisiana’s 4^th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1961 to 1978.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Waggonner is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1978 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 Waggonner sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 15, 1978. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

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

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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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Waggonner sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (23%) Government Operations and Politics (18%) Labor and Employment (16%) Social Welfare (15%) Law (8%) International Affairs (8%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (6%) Education (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Waggonner recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1962 to Oct 1978, Waggonner missed 400 of 6,209 roll call votes, which is 6.4%. This is better than the median of 8.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1978. 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...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1962 Jan-Mar	20	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Apr-Jun	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Jul-Sep	49	1	2.0%	61^st
1962 Oct-Oct	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jan-Mar	9	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Apr-Jun	31	1	3.2%	62^nd
1963 Jul-Sep	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Oct-Dec	50	2	4.0%	45^th
1964 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Apr-Jun	34	4	11.8%	97^th
1964 Jul-Sep	49	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Oct-Oct	4	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	28	3	10.7%	60^th
1965 Apr-Jun	53	8	15.1%	68^th
1965 Jul-Sep	98	6	6.1%	46^th
1965 Oct-Oct	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1966 Jan-Mar	30	1	3.3%	23^rd
1966 Apr-Jun	51	9	17.6%	68^th
1966 Jul-Sep	72	2	2.8%	13^th
1966 Oct-Oct	40	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Jan-Mar	31	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Apr-Jun	57	1	1.8%	46^th
1967 Jul-Sep	59	4	6.8%	81^st
1967 Oct-Dec	98	5	5.1%	80^th
1968 Jan-Mar	38	1	2.6%	62^nd
1968 Apr-Jun	79	6	7.6%	88^th
1968 Jul-Sep	91	7	7.7%	72^nd
1968 Oct-Oct	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jan-Mar	16	1	6.2%	57^th
1969 Apr-Jun	28	1	3.6%	23^rd
1969 Jul-Sep	45	1	2.2%	14^th
1969 Oct-Dec	88	8	9.1%	40^th
1970 Jan-Mar	35	4	11.4%	55^th
1970 Apr-Jun	74	3	4.1%	11^th
1970 Jul-Sep	76	7	9.2%	40^th
1970 Oct-Dec	81	33	40.7%	90^th
1971 Jan-Mar	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Apr-Jun	90	11	12.2%	47^th
1971 Jul-Sep	74	1	1.4%	10^th
1971 Oct-Dec	134	16	11.9%	52^nd
1972 Jan-Mar	64	3	4.7%	28^th
1972 Apr-Jun	114	12	10.5%	44^th
1972 Jul-Sep	101	6	5.9%	38^th
1972 Oct-Oct	50	17	34.0%	84^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	2	5.6%	38^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	7	3.7%	21^st
1973 Jul-Sep	131	5	3.8%	39^th
1973 Oct-Dec	182	8	4.4%	33^rd
1974 Jan-Mar	79	0	0.0%	0^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	13	7.6%	41^st
1974 Jul-Sep	148	3	2.0%	18^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	11	7.8%	42^nd
1975 Jan-Mar	68	3	4.4%	38^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	8	4.0%	34^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	6	3.9%	35^th
1975 Oct-Dec	191	2	1.0%	12^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	3	2.8%	30^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	20	7.5%	40^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	24	8.5%	59^th
1976 Oct-Oct	7	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	100	4	4.0%	36^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	14	5.1%	35^th
1977 Jul-Sep	198	12	6.1%	50^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	7	5.2%	42^nd
1978 Jan-Mar	150	16	10.7%	62^nd
1978 Apr-Jun	300	22	7.3%	42^nd
1978 Jul-Sep	308	25	8.1%	48^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	0	0.0%	0^th

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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills