Sen. James Allen

Former Senator for Alabama

Allen was a senator from Alabama and was a Democrat. He served from 1969 to 1978.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. James Allen [D-AL, 1969-1978]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

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

Enacted Legislation

Allen 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

Allen sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (30%) Education (12%) Law (11%) Taxation (10%) Private Legislation (10%) Agriculture and Food (10%) Crime and Law Enforcement (9%) Armed Forces and National Security (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Allen recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1969 to May 1978, Allen missed 165 of 4,867 roll call votes, which is 3.4%. This is better than the median of 12.1% among the lifetime records of senators serving in May 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
1969 Jan-Mar	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Apr-Jun	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	1	2.3%	18^th
1969 Oct-Dec	158	13	8.2%	18^th
1970 Jan-Mar	100	3	3.0%	14^th
1970 Apr-Jun	92	0	0.0%	0^th
1970 Jul-Sep	123	0	0.0%	0^th
1970 Oct-Dec	106	10	9.4%	35^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	1	4.0%	11^th
1971 Apr-Jun	89	6	6.7%	10^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	2	1.0%	2^nd
1972 Jan-Mar	119	4	3.4%	10^th
1972 Apr-Jun	130	1	0.8%	3^rd
1972 Jul-Sep	206	1	0.5%	2^nd
1972 Oct-Oct	75	0	0.0%	0^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	0	0.0%	0^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	13	6.8%	25^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	13	7.8%	49^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	21	12.5%	61^st
1974 Jan-Mar	94	3	3.2%	26^th
1974 Apr-Jun	179	5	2.8%	19^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	0	0.0%	0^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	7	5.3%	29^th
1975 Jan-Mar	118	1	0.8%	15^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	10	7.1%	38^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	12	7.1%	44^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	27	14.8%	77^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	0	0.0%	0^th
1976 Apr-Jun	263	0	0.0%	0^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	1	0.3%	4^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	9	6.8%	37^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	1	1.3%	0^th
1978 Apr-Jun	83	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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills