Rep. Brian Donnelly

Former Representative for Massachusetts’s 11^th District

Donnelly was the representative for Massachusetts’s 11^th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1979 to 1992.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Donnelly is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1992 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 Donnelly sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 9, 1992. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Donnelly 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

Donnelly sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Taxation (40%) Health (18%) Social Welfare (16%) Finance and Financial Sector (6%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Donnelly recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1979 to Oct 1992, Donnelly missed 577 of 6,659 roll call votes, which is 8.7%. This is worse than the median of 4.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1992. 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
1979 Jan-Mar	63	12	19.0%	85^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	4	1.8%	17^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	10	5.1%	43^rd
1979 Oct-Dec	190	17	8.9%	47^th
1980 Jan-Mar	148	14	9.5%	56^th
1980 Apr-Jun	197	31	15.7%	84^th
1980 Jul-Sep	192	26	13.5%	77^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	9	13.4%	64^th
1981 Jan-Mar	15	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Apr-Jun	90	20	22.2%	92^nd
1981 Jul-Sep	106	8	7.5%	68^th
1981 Oct-Dec	142	18	12.7%	79^th
1982 Feb-Mar	48	1	2.1%	27^th
1982 Apr-Jun	119	10	8.4%	71^st
1982 Jul-Sep	193	12	6.2%	54^th
1982 Oct-Dec	99	7	7.1%	46^th
1983 Jan-Mar	43	10	23.3%	93^rd
1983 Apr-Jun	182	2	1.1%	10^th
1983 Jul-Sep	130	1	0.8%	12^th
1983 Oct-Nov	143	7	4.9%	46^th
1984 Jan-Mar	53	13	24.5%	92^nd
1984 Apr-Jun	223	18	8.1%	62^nd
1984 Jul-Sep	96	6	6.2%	62^nd
1984 Oct-Oct	36	2	5.6%	49^th
1985 Jan-Mar	36	5	13.9%	77^th
1985 Apr-Jun	154	4	2.6%	30^th
1985 Jul-Sep	101	7	6.9%	69^th
1985 Oct-Dec	148	1	0.7%	10^th
1986 Jan-Mar	61	10	16.4%	81^st
1986 Apr-Jun	128	12	9.4%	85^th
1986 Jul-Sep	202	13	6.4%	71^st
1986 Oct-Oct	60	1	1.7%	34^th
1987 Jan-Mar	39	7	17.9%	91^st
1987 Apr-Jun	187	18	9.6%	82^nd
1987 Jul-Sep	95	2	2.1%	39^th
1987 Oct-Dec	167	15	9.0%	69^th
1988 Feb-Mar	49	2	4.1%	42^nd
1988 Apr-Jun	161	12	7.5%	70^th
1988 Jul-Sep	152	7	4.6%	50^th
1988 Oct-Oct	89	50	56.2%	99^th
1989 Jan-Mar	14	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	105	3	2.9%	41^st
1989 Jul-Sep	128	12	9.4%	93^rd
1989 Oct-Nov	121	6	5.0%	58^th
1990 Jan-Mar	60	8	13.3%	90^th
1990 Apr-Jun	150	10	6.7%	77^th
1990 Jul-Sep	183	11	6.0%	77^th
1990 Oct-Oct	143	11	7.7%	75^th
1991 Jan-Mar	62	17	27.4%	98^th
1991 Apr-Jun	139	2	1.4%	25^th
1991 Jul-Sep	81	1	1.2%	12^th
1991 Oct-Nov	162	3	1.9%	35^th
1992 Jan-Mar	66	10	15.2%	90^th
1992 Apr-Jun	185	22	11.9%	83^rd
1992 Jul-Sep	196	34	17.3%	89^th
1992 Oct-Oct	41	3	7.3%	60^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
The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
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