Sen. Tom Udall
Former Senator for New Mexico
pronounced tom // YOO-dawl
Udall was a senator from New Mexico and was a Democrat. He served from 2009 to 2020.
He was previously the representative for New Mexico’s 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1999 to 2008.
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2020 Report Card for Udall.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Udall is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2020 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 6, 2015 to Dec 21, 2020. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Udall was the primary sponsor of 24 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 294 (116th): Native American Business Incubators Program Act
- S. 886 (116th): Indian Water Rights Settlement Extension Act
- S. 256 (116th): Esther Martinez Native American Languages Programs Reauthorization Act
- S. 1875 (116th): Aamodt Litigation Settlement Completion Act of 2019
- S. 2926 (114th): Science Prize Competitions Act of 2016
- S. 2508 (114th): Youth Sports Concussion Act
- S. 986 (114th): Albuquerque Indian School Land Transfer Act
Does 24 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
Udall sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Native Americans (25%) Environmental Protection (14%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (13%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Health (12%) Armed Forces and National Security (9%) Energy (7%) Agriculture and Food (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Udall recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 4886 (116th): Durbin Feeling Native American Languages Act of 2020
- S. 4682 (116th): Care Corps Demonstration Act of 2020
- S. 4681 (116th): A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to …
- S. 4406 (116th): Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act
- S. 4385 (116th): Stopping COVID Scams Act of 2020
- S. 4357 (116th): REPLANT Act
- S.Res. 662 (116th): A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of National Public Health Week.
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2009 to Jan 2021, Udall missed 44 of 3,659 roll call votes, which is 1.2%. This is better than the median of 1.8% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2021. 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
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills