Sen. Frank Church

Former Senator for Idaho

Church was a senator from Idaho and was a Democrat. He served from 1957 to 1980.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. Frank Church [D-ID, 1957-1980]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Church is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1980 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 legislators sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 15, 1975 to Dec 16, 1980. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Church was the primary sponsor of 21 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 21 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

Church sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (21%) Government Operations and Politics (19%) Social Welfare (15%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (15%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%) Energy (6%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Church recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1957 to Dec 1980, Church missed 1,852 of 9,064 roll call votes, which is 20.4%. This is much worse than the median of 9.2% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 1980. 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
1957 Jan-Mar	16	0	0.0%	0^th
1957 Apr-Jun	45	2	4.4%	20^th
1957 Jul-Aug	46	9	19.6%	91^st
1958 Feb-Mar	38	3	7.9%	55^th
1958 Apr-Jun	86	4	4.7%	36^th
1958 Jul-Aug	76	0	0.0%	0^th
1959 Jan-Apr	57	2	3.5%	50^th
1959 May-Aug	128	16	12.5%	69^th
1959 Sep-Sep	30	18	60.0%	94^th
1960 Jan-Apr	79	3	3.8%	6^th
1960 May-Aug	123	9	7.3%	47^th
1960 Sep-Sep	5	0	0.0%	0^th
1961 Jan-Apr	31	2	6.5%	56^th
1961 May-Aug	137	3	2.2%	21^st
1961 Sep-Sep	36	5	13.9%	53^rd
1962 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	42^nd
1962 Apr-Jun	62	18	29.0%	84^th
1962 Jul-Sep	122	22	18.0%	79^th
1962 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jan-Mar	8	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Apr-Jun	73	5	6.8%	60^th
1963 Jul-Sep	61	4	6.6%	28^th
1963 Oct-Dec	87	10	11.5%	60^th
1964 Jan-Mar	60	7	11.7%	80^th
1964 Apr-Jun	138	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Jul-Sep	106	7	6.6%	36^th
1964 Oct-Oct	1	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	32	3	9.4%	25^th
1965 Apr-Jun	106	28	26.4%	92^nd
1965 Jul-Sep	106	39	36.8%	96^th
1965 Oct-Oct	15	12	80.0%	92^nd
1966 Jan-Mar	28	12	42.9%	92^nd
1966 Apr-Jun	56	11	19.6%	64^th
1966 Jul-Sep	119	24	20.2%	92^nd
1966 Oct-Oct	35	35	100.0%	96^th
1967 Jan-Mar	53	26	49.1%	90^th
1967 Apr-Jun	70	11	15.7%	69^th
1967 Jul-Sep	81	8	9.9%	38^th
1967 Oct-Dec	111	15	13.5%	34^th
1968 Jan-Mar	69	12	17.4%	62^nd
1968 Apr-Jun	96	57	59.4%	90^th
1968 Jul-Sep	89	32	36.0%	66^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	27	100.0%	93^rd
1969 Jan-Mar	17	1	5.9%	36^th
1969 Apr-Jun	26	2	7.7%	38^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	2	4.5%	36^th
1969 Oct-Dec	158	16	10.1%	28^th
1970 Jan-Mar	100	42	42.0%	87^th
1970 Apr-Jun	92	9	9.8%	44^th
1970 Jul-Sep	123	18	14.6%	31^st
1970 Oct-Dec	106	31	29.2%	68^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	2	8.0%	25^th
1971 Apr-Jun	89	20	22.5%	64^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	20	18.3%	60^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	41	20.3%	69^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	19	16.0%	53^rd
1972 Apr-Jun	130	28	21.5%	67^th
1972 Jul-Sep	206	13	6.3%	33^rd
1972 Oct-Oct	75	20	26.7%	71^st
1973 Jan-Mar	67	9	13.4%	58^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	23	12.0%	65^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	12	7.2%	48^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	46	27.4%	88^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	8	8.5%	41^st
1974 Apr-Jun	179	80	44.7%	93^rd
1974 Jul-Sep	138	18	13.0%	69^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	53	39.8%	91^st
1975 Jan-Mar	118	20	16.9%	84^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	29	20.6%	79^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	18	10.6%	65^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	49	26.9%	92^nd
1976 Jan-Mar	109	43	39.4%	95^th
1976 Apr-Jun	263	157	59.7%	97^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	62	19.7%	73^rd
1976 Oct-Oct	13	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	11	12.0%	61^st
1977 Apr-Jun	178	46	25.8%	95^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	2	0.9%	9^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	5	3.8%	20^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	3	3.8%	12^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	18	15.1%	82^nd
1978 Jul-Sep	237	27	11.4%	59^th
1978 Oct-Oct	86	7	8.1%	52^nd
1979 Feb-Mar	32	2	6.2%	50^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	24	19.8%	88^th
1979 Jul-Sep	171	5	2.9%	19^th
1979 Oct-Dec	184	41	22.3%	89^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	10	14.9%	75^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	80	37.0%	93^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	179	104	58.1%	96^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	54	64.3%	95^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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills