Rep. John Dowdy
Former Representative for Texas’s 2nd District
Misconduct
In 1971 Dowdy was convicted of bribery, conspiracy, and perjury related to accepting $25,000 to hinder a federal investigation of a Maryland company in 1965. On Apr. 16, 1975, the House of Representatives passed H. Res. 46, 360-37 adding clause 10 to the Code of Official Conduct, stating the policy of the House that a member convicted of a serious crime voluntarily refrain from voting.
| Dec. 30, 1971 | Convicted of bribery, conspiracy, and perjury. |
| 1972 | Declined to run for re-election. |
| Mar. 12, 1975 | House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct unanimously adopted H. Res. 46 |
| Apr. 16, 1975 | House of Representatives passed H. Res. 46, 360-37 adding clause 10 to the Code of Official Conduct, stating the policy of the House that member convicted of a serious crime voluntarily refrain from voting |
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1953 to Oct 1972, Dowdy missed 721 of 3,099 roll call votes, which is 23.3%. This is much worse than the median of 10.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1972. 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
- 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
