Washington Post: Hillary Clinton was a more effective lawmaker than Bernie Sanders

[kennetha]

....

Here’s what the numbers say: During her eight years in the Senate, Hillary Clinton sponsored 10 bills that passed the chamber. The mean senator passes 1.4 bills a year, so Clinton’s 1.25 bills per year is approximately in line with the chamber average. By contrast, Bernie Sanders has been in the Senate nine years and has sponsored only one bill that passed.

....
Hillary Clinton was a more effective lawmaker than Bernie Sanders

[revbones]

1. Yeah, cuz amendments to bills don't count huh? nt

[kennetha]

2. read the article, it discusses amendments too.

[Jarqui]

8. And where do Independents fit in the scheme of sponsoring with Dems?

At the bottom of the list.

Bernie's came up with all kinds of bills. But they never touched them - because he was an independent.

The three bills Hillary got passed:
S.1241 2004 Kate Mullany National Historic Site Act
Establishes the Kate Mullany National Historic Site in Troy, New York. Authorizes appropriations.

S.3613 2006 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". Names post office after Major George Quamo, U.S. Army

S.3145 2008 A bill to designate a portion of United States Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, New York, as the "Timothy J. Russert Highway"

I think the Washington Post is so in the tank for Hillary that David Brock could be their phantom editor.

[kennetha]

9. Did you read the article?

it explicitly excluded commemorative bills.

[Bluenorthwest]

14. And it does so while being incorrect about the commemorative bills....

They say: " both Clinton and Sanders, for example, passed several bills renaming post offices after prominent local residents" but they even get this simple bit of fact very wrong. Clinton has not had 'several' post office renaming bills, she's had just one.
As usual, Washington Post gets even the basically embarrassingly incorrect. Remember they were the paper reporting 147 FBI Agents investigating Hillary.....

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Good find. Thanks for posting.

[Skwmom]

4. For the Corps & 1% nobody is more effective than the Clintons two-for the price of one couple.

[Lucinda]

5. I find her bipartisan work to be even more telling.

Nothing Bernie sponsored last year had a Rep co-sponsor. Not one single thing. The prior two years, co-sponsored items were less than 10% of what he put forward. MANY of his bills arent even co-sponsored by a Dem. To me that shows he isnt effective at building coalitions to get things done. His congressional effectiveness has all been done in terms of ammendments to others bills. That is very useful, and shows that he can be effective within the system, but it is not an indicator of strong leadership abilities.

[Betty Karlson]

6. Shame her judgement is always flawed whenever a major issue comes up.

Iraq
TPP
TTIP
$15 / hour
gay rights
Panama

[TheSarcastinator]

7. Washington Post: Hillary is Just Like Jesus!

No bias at all in their reporting....

[angrychair]

10. Source

constantly see posts that the WP is a "right-wing rag" from Hillary supporters but in this case it's not?

I guess this "right-wing rag" things works as I suspected: as long as it plays to their confirmation bias it is fine. Got it.

[Nanjeanne]

11. Amendments are the most important things to pass - they make bills better and

sometimes stop the most egregious parts of not good bills.

I'm also trying to understand where they came up with that figure. According to Congress.gov - she sponsored 15 bills that passed one chamber and 4 bills that passed both chambers. I'm not including Resolutions. But I wouldn't call even the 15 bills evidence of her effectiveness. Most of those bills were nice, but pretty innocuous - like:

A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 245 North Main Street in New City, New York, as the "Kenneth Peter Zebrowski Post Office Building".

A bill to designate a portion of United States Route 20A, located in Orchard Park, New York, as the "Timothy J. Russert Highway".

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".

Caribbean National Forest Act of 2005

Kate Mullany National Historic Site Act

Caribbean National Forest Act of 2004

A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 555 West 180th Street in New York, New York, as the "Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda Post Office".

225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemoration Act

Lifespan Respite Care Act of 2003

A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 201 Main Street, Lake Placid, New York, as the "John A. "Jack" Shea Post Office Building".

A bill to designate the building located at 1 Federal Plaza in New York, New York, as the "James L. Watson United States Courthouse".

A bill to extend the period of availability of unemployment assistance under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act in the case of victims of the terrorist attacks of... (This is a good one)

A bill to designate the United States courthouse located at 40 Centre Street in New York, New York, as the "Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse".

Frankly, I wouldn't be bragging about her effectiveness - unless it's about naming buildings. And none equal the one bill sponsored by Sanders that became law: Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013

Now Bernie's Amendments in the House & also in the Senate are too numerous to list here but can easily be tracked at Congress.gov. and include things like:

House: Amendment provides $1.5 million for the National Agri-Tourism Initiative under the USDA Rural Community Advancement Program. Amendment increases funding for the Environmental Protection Agency's EnergyStar Program in K-12 school systems by $1.8 million. Amendment increases Energy Supply and Conservation funding by $1,000,000. Amendment increases funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) program and the Weatherization Assistance program. Amendment increases funding for the Rural Community Advancement Program. AND LOTS MORE

Senate: To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to supporting programs that keep low-income older individuals healthy and able to live at home, such as those programs funded through the Older Americans Act of 1965. To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to strengthening the United States Postal Service by establishing a moratorium to protect mail processing plants, reinstating overnight delivery standards, and protecting rural service. To establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to protect Medicaid beneficiaries from benefit cuts. To express the sense of the Senate on significantly reducing child poverty by calendar year 2019. Relative to extension of authority for program of referral and counseling services for veterans at risk of homelessness who are transitioning from certain institutions. AND LOTS MORE

To be fair - Hillary sponsored some amendments in the Senate as well which are good, like: To provide for a reserve fund for legislation to establish a program, including medical monitoring and treatment, addressing the adverse health impacts linked to the September 11, 2001, attacks. To increase funding for the Department of Agriculture by $1,000,000 in fiscal year 2009 to provide public access to information about the sources of foods distributed through the school lunch program and other nutrition programs under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. To extend and enhance the authority for temporary lodging expenses for members of the Armed Forces in areas subject to a major disaster declaration or for installations experiencing a sudden increase in personnel levels. AND MORE

But then if we think these amendments make Hillary an effective lawmaker - then Bernie Sanders is more than qualified as a more effective lawmaker!

So this is my long-winded way of saying Washington Post doesn't know their ass from their elbow!

[Bluenorthwest]

15. It's WaPost so they have it all backasswards. My favorite Hillary accomplishment in the Seante was

an amendment related to disaster funding in 2007. It was good work on her part. This article is not good work on WaPost's part but they are consistently incorrect and unfair to both Democratic candidates and I expect their work to be full of holes.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Because she did a lot more collaborating (aka Triangulating) with Republicans.

[Herman4747]

13. I suspect that Hillary's getting TRIVIAL SHIT PASSED.

From the article at the link in the original post, the author writes:

"I haven’t taken into consideration the relative importance of the bills and amendments Clinton and Sanders have passed".

In addition, a Congressperson's duties go beyond just passing bills. They would include:

* Investigating the suitability of proposed nominees for federal jobs

* Investigating the effectiveness of federal agencies

* Investigating the effectiveness of passed legislation

undoubtedly other tasks as well.

[Blue Meany]

16. An example of how to lie and distort with statistics

If you were looking at commonsense metrics, you would probably ask how many bills each of them got passed into law, not how many passed the Senate.

Clinton submitted 363 bills, 3 were passed; none were significantand they were listed in a previous post in this thread.

Snaders submitted 192, 2 of which became law. Only one was significant, the 2013 Cost of Living Adjustment for Veterans.

Looking at amendments

Hillary submitted 296 and 57 were agreed to. There is no easy way to tell which amendments were passed into law, however.

Sanders submitted 329 of which 41 were agreed to.

Clinton co-sponsored 1530 bills, of which 70 passed.

Sanders co-sponsored 1159 bills, of which 32 passed. Both Clinton and Sanders were co-sponsore of at least one bill: the Lilly Leadbetter Act.

I don't really think these stats really are a metic for productivity or effectiveness; they may well be a metric for how much one is willing to compromise or "move to the center" The real measure, are the bills themselves.

[TheDormouse]

17. still waiting to hear what those substantive bills were ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511672943

[Squinch]

18. Awesome article, kennetha. Here are some excerpts other than the ones you provided

that jumped out at me:

Another way members of Congress can influence legislative outcomes is to amend a bill someone else has sponsored, particularly in the Senate... Clinton successfully amended bills 67 times in her eight years in the Senate. Sanders did so 57 times in nine years. On a year-by-year basis, that comes to 8.4 per year for Clinton and 6.3 per year for Sanders. Moreover, the mean senator passed 7.4 amendments. Clinton’s is significantly higher than the mean, and Sanders’s is significantly below the mean. Put differently, Clinton passed 33 percent more amendments per year than did Sanders.

So much for Sanders's self-bestowed title of "amendment king." He's more like an "amendment rook."

And this:

Sanders’s record during his 16 years in the House of Representatives was similar. There he didn’t pass a single bill...one passed bill over a quarter-century in both houses of Congress is a very low number compared with his colleagues.

And:

Sanders’s legislative effectiveness score was below the House median in seven of the eight Congresses in which he served.

I see that the Bernie Buddies are tossing all kinds of shit into your thread, and not addressing the issue of your OP. I have no doubt that they will continue to do so, but clearly this article shows that Bernie's career has been one of back bench mediocrity in terms of getting anything done.

Thanks for posting.