Ben at Red State just wrote the post I had researched a bit and was contemplating writing. However, I’m going to pitch in some further research that he didn’t cover, take a few minor issues with what he said, and solidify a few facts. Ben’s approach was to basically disprove what FactCheck says and he easily accomplishes this, seeing that FactCheck was egregiously un-factual. However, along the way, Ben overstates his case a bit. And also, Ben does not conclusively show that Palin’s remarks were correct, he only shows that FactCheck.org was wrong.
I always read all the FactCheck.org pieces and have found them to be relatively evenhanded, but their recent piece on Palin’s speech jumped out at me as totally wrong on the basic facts. I did some more research and found that my “off the top of my head from what I know about Barack’s record” was right. My source? A liberal blog extolling Obama’s record.
The genesis of this post started with the reception of the factually challenged FactCheck.org email and was kicked into high gear when I read a blog post on CBS News that seems to be a joint venture with Washington Monthly. This blogger is an ardent liberal, as you can see by perusing his own blog. His name is hilzoy:
Palin: “But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.”
Ha, ha, ha. I gave a rundown of Obama’s accomplishments in the Senate here. They include the Lugar-Obama bill on nonproliferation, and an ethics reform package that the Washington Post called “the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet.”
(The proposed Lugar-Obama non-proliferation law expired, never having passed the Senate or House. What Obama and Lugar tout appears to simply be a funding request that they put in for a similar program. This “initiative” seems really murky and I’ve had trouble finding details of it. If anyone has more info, please let me know in the comments.)
So I followed those links he gave. And looked. He had done an incredible amount of research listing every single bill or amendment (that passed) that Clinton and Obama had sponsored or co-sponsored. He did this primarily for the 109th and 110th Congress because those are the only two that Obama has been in office.
Before we go further, we need to clear something up. “Authored” (the word Palin used) does not have an official legislative definition. Bills have one sponsor and they have co-sponsors. As Ben rightly points out, co-sponsors are a dime a dozen and are simply supporters of the bills, not necessarily co-authors. Our liberal blogger friend says the same thing, essentially: “But it’s tricky trying to figure out which bills they co-sponsored because they actually worked on them, and which they co-sponsored just because they thought the bill was a good one.” So let’s first look at bills that Obama indisputably authored–he was the sponsor. Here’s hilzoy’s summary of the bills authored/sponsored (which is what Palin was talking about) by Obama (and Hillary):
Bills Passed:
110th Congress, Clinton: no bills; Obama: no bills.
109th Congress, Clinton:
S.2376 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 80 Killian Road in Massapequa, New York, as the “Gerard A. Fiorenza Post Office Building”. For further action, see H.R.3934, which became Public Law 109-255 on 8/1/2006.
S.2722 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 170 East Main Street in Patchogue, New York, as the “Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy Post Office Building”. Note: For further action, see H.R.4101, which became Public Law 109-256 on 8/1/2006.
S.3613 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2951 New York Highway 43 in Averill Park, New York, as the “Major George Quamo Post Office Building”. Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 109-311
S.3910 : A bill to direct the Joint Committee on the Library to accept the donation of a bust depicting Sojourner Truth and to display the bust in a suitable location in the Capitol. Note: For further action, see H.R.4510, which became Public Law 109-427 on 12/20/2006.
109th Congress, Obama:
S.2125 : A bill to promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 12/16/2005) Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 109-456
S.3757 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 950 Missouri Avenue in East St. Louis, Illinois, as the “Katherine Dunham Post Office Building”. Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 7/27/2006) Note: For further action, see H.R.5929, which became Public Law 109-333 on 10/12/2006.
Ok, so between Obama and Clinton, we have the naming of four post offices, one bust donated to the Library of Congress, and Obama getting a bill passed “to promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo”. While the last may have been a good bill, it’s a very routine bill that mandates minimum spending on foreign aid under old laws, suggests that the Congo’s army stop raping women on a massive scale, authorizes the withholding of aid to those seeking destabilize the Congo, and tries to tell the executive branch what to do in regards to Congo. It passed the Senate unanimously and the House by voice vote and was signed into law by Bush. It was hardly a difficult bipartisan compromise or significant legislation.
So according to this ultra-liberal blogger who just finished saying “Ha, ha, ha.” to Palin’s assertion, Palin was indeed correct, according to the idea that being the sponsor means being the author, in what she said vis a vis the U.S. Senate:
But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.
Ben says:
Cosponsors are allies in a fight: what they aren’t is, by any stretch, the authors of a piece of legislation.
While he is correct 90% of the time and many liberal boosters of Obama have deceptively equated bills that Obama has co-sponsored with him authoring them when he has not, what Ben says is an oversimplification. There are cases where a co-sponsor is also a co-author.
Hilzoy comes to the rescue again with an analysis of bills in the U.S. Senate that had Obama listed as co-sponsor when the bill was introduced. The one that stands out (even though it would take some contortions to describe it as “major law” or “major reform”) is S. 2590. This is a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn. The bill forms a searchable website of government spending. It’s a spectacular and wonderful bill, especially for opponents of government waste. Here’s how Coburn introduced the bill: “Mr. President, today, along with Senators BARACK OBAMA, THOMAS CARPER, and JOHN MCCAIN, I introduced legislation to create an online public database that itemizes Federal funding.” When it passed, Coburn issued this press release which calls it the Coburn-Obama bill. But once again was it a “major law” or a “major reform”? It comes close perhaps, but I don’t think many Americans would classify it as such.
There are no other significant bills listed in Hilzoy’s list of bills that Obama initially co-sponsored (i.e. authored).
Before we move on to the next step to examine his IL Senate record, I would like to note that Obama has sponsored (i.e. authored) a few worthy amendments to bills in the U.S. Senate. This is to Obama’s credit, but it’s not what Palin was talking about.
So, in recap, Obama’s record in the U.S. Senate is indeed very, very thin as Palin asserted. He has not sponsored any “major law or reform”. He co-sponsored (and co-authored) one really good bill (S. 2590) that nonetheless cannot be classified as major. So Palin was certainly right about his U.S. Senate record.
I certainly did not do the same level of research into bills Obama authored during his tenure in the IL Senate, but this issue seems simpler (once again because of research done by Obama boosters). The New York Times (ever friendly to Obama’s cause) lists the bills he “sponsored”. In this, they are playing fast and loose with the word “sponsored” to also include “co-sponsored” which is something quite different. Nonetheless, the only major law/reform passed was an ethics law from ‘98 that banned gifts from lobbyists, barred the personal use of campaign money, and prevented fundraising in the State Capitol. (The ineffectualness and loopholey-ness of this law is laid out here.) This was HB0672. It can be categorically and forcefully stated that Obama had nothing to do with authoring this bill. He was only added as co-sponsor the day before it passed, more than a year after it was first introduced.
So in summary, Ben does a good job of showing FactCheck.org’s bungling of the facts.
I delved a bit deeper and looked directly at Obama’s record in the U.S. and IL Senate (via liberal boosters (like hilzoy and the NYT), Google searches, and government websites). I believe this second step to be necessary because FactCheck got the facts wrong. Who are we to assume that they got wrong only the facts they included? What if they also missed facts that would show Sarah Palin was wrong in her statement? Thus, I looked directly at his record. I found some things in his record that are very commendable. However, Sarah Palin’s statement was resoundingly vindicated:
But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.
I’d like to close out this post with a supporter of Obama’s illustrating his nearly non-existent record of legislative accomplishments:
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