Hillary Clinton, Empty Pantsuit: Her Track Record from the Senate

[Motown_Johnny]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/21/413141/-Hillary-Clinton-Empty-Pantsuit-Her-Track-Record-from-the-Senate


^snip^

Hillary Clinton, Empty Pantsuit: Her Track Record from the Senate

By poblano
Wednesday Nov 21, 2007 3:16 AM EST




Before we begin, let's consider some definitions of leadership and effectiveness in the Senate. Although there are many types of leadership in the Senate, I think we can all agree that sponsoring more bills that become law, all else being equal, is an indicator of influence and leadership. Likewise, I think we can also agree that having a higher percentage of one's bills become law, all else being equal, is an indicator of effectiveness.

As measured by these definitions, Hillary Clinton's leadership over her seven years in the Senate has been marginal, and her effectiveness over her Senate terms has been extremely poor. In fact, she has a remarkably poor track record at turning her sponsored legislation into law, to the extent that she's an outlier among her Democratic colleagues. Of 337 bills that Hillary has introduced, only 2 have become law. These numbers are always lower than you'd think -- it isn't easy to get a bill passed -- but Hillary's batting average is especially poor.

Let's take a look at some detail.

GovTrack.us, an award-winning, non-partisan source of information on our legislators, has compiled a number of statistics related to bill sponsorship in the House and Senate. These statistics go back to 1997, and include such things as the number of bills sponsored, the number of sponsored bills that go to committee, and the number of sponsored bills that are passed into law. For the remainder of this analysis, I will be focusing solely on current senate Democrats who have completed at least one full term (I'm including Joseph Lieberman here, but not Bernie Sanders). There are 3938 such Senators in all. (The reason I'm excluding Republicans, FWIW, is that it's much easier to have one's bills become law when one's party controls the chamber, as the Republicans have for most of the past ten years. Therefore, it isn't fair to any Democrat to compare their numbers to a Republican).

Hillary Clinton has introduced bills to the Senate at a blistering pace. She has sponsored 337 bills in her Senate tenure so far, or an average of 288.9 per term. This is the highest number of any of her Democratic cohorts:

Clinton - 288.9 bills sponsored per term (337 in 1.17 terms)
Feinstein - 288.8 bills sponsored per term (528 in 1.83 terms)
Schumer - 218.2 bills sponsored per term (400 in 1.83 terms)
Bingaman - 196.9 bills sponsored per term (361 in 1.83 terms)
Boxer - 180.0 bills sponsored per term (330 in 1.83 terms)
AVERAGE - 122.1 bills sponsored per term

Nelson/NE - 52.3 bills sponsored per term (61 in 1.17 terms)
Byrd - 28.4 bills sponsored per term (52 in 1.83 terms)
Unfortunately, very little of this legislation has moved. Of Hillary's 337 bills, only 46 have made it to the Committee stage, giving her a 13.6% batting average; the typical Democrat has a 17.4% batting average. In other words, Hillary Clinton has been relatively ineffective at getting her sponsored bills to Committee; she ranks 24 of the 39 Democrats in this department.







Can we please stop with the revisionist history from right wing sources? It isn't just things like her 19 minute speech in favor of the Iraq war, and her vote in favor of it, that make her a poor choice for nominee.

[cantbeserious]

1. Thank You For Sharing These Truths

eom

[femmedem]

2. To be fair, this diary was written in 2007. n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

3. What happened since then to change her Senate record? n/t

[Scuba]

4. I think one must also consider the nature of the bills introduced. Naming post offices is not ...

... equivaltent to shoring up veteran's benefits, for example.

[askew]

12. Yep, this is one the reasons I backed Obama over Hillary. He was there 1/2 the time

that she was and got 3 pieces of legislation enacted while Hillary named post offices. His bills were on the Congo, campaign finance reform and nuclear disarmament. Pretty impressive. Obama was remarkably productive for a first term Senator.

It's why I back O'Malley now. I don't care about rhetoric. I care about results and Hillary has the least amount of results of all 3 candidates in the race by far.

[JaneyVee]

5. Same as Bernie did in 25 years.

[Motown_Johnny]

15. Your own thread proves that statement wrong.

What legislation did Hillary compose that compares with Bernie's Veterans Bill?

None.


The most memorable accomplishment for Hillary as a Senator was her 19 minute speech encouraging others to vote in favor of the Iraq War and that will never change.

[NV Whino]

6. Hillary's short stint as a senator was merely a stepping stone for the presidency.

Just as was Obama's.

[askew]

13. Unlike Hillary, Obama was an extremely effective 1st term Senator and got 3 bills thru

Congress in his short stint there (campaign finance reform, nuclear disarmament, and something to do with the Congo). His tenure in the Senate was nothing like Hillary's ineffectual tenure.

[Dem2]

7. Weird

Googling desperately to dig up negative stories about Hillary? Seems like trying too hard.

[Motown_Johnny]

10. Then you Google it, you will find it is one of the first things listed.

It is also a response to the thread about the Washington Post story. I thought a liberal source was a reasonable reaction to it.

[Beaverhausen]

8. 2007? Seriously?

Desperate much?

[Motown_Johnny]

9. How has her Senate record changed since then?

[sabrina 1]

11. I know here Senate record, whe was my Senator. It was less than impressive.

[azurnoir]

14. well she has lots of ideas

and they keep evolving all of the time