Obama's Accomplishments, US Senate Edition

Now I'll move to Obama's time in US Senate. His most significant accomplishment is without a doubt his work with Dick Lugar (R) on securing nuclear weapons in the former USSR.

During the 2004 campaign, although neither candidate emphasized their plans related to the issue, both Bush and Kerry agreed that nuclear proliferation was the most pressing national security risk the US faced. I don't think anything has changed regarding its importance.

Obama caught Lugar's eye because he was talking about loose nukes during his Senate campaign, even though it is hardly a traditional campaign issue. Obama didn't care that Lugar was a Republican, he understood that Lugar was the foremost expert in the Senate on this issue, so he decided to learn as much as possible from Lugar. He ended up taking former Senator Sam Nunn's role in cosponsoring legislation with Lugar. It was just this past June, despite being in the middle of the presidential campaign, that the Lugar-Obama nonproliferation initiative secured funding from the Appropriations Committee.

Obama also worked with Lugar on a different kind of national security issue, avian flu.

He also taken the lead in ethics legislation, which when it was passed in early 2007, was described as "the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet." When it comes to dealing with the abuse of earmarks, Obama was instrumental in the passage of The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, allowing citizens to easily find out what their legislators are doing. (Maybe now that he has selected Palin, McCain will come to understand that earmarks are not all bad. Most of our aid to Israel comes in the form of earmarks, and surely McCain does not want to cut those) It is worth noting that Obama teamed up with Sen Coburn (R) on the transparency bill, and just a few months ago they introducing a new bill strengthening the 2006 law.

This new bill gives a great example of the kind of bipartisanship Obama practices. Obama and Coburn has been working on this bill for a while. McCain had nothing to do with the crafting of this bill, and Coburn admits that it was his fault for not inviting McCain's participation. When they were ready to introduce the bill, McCain's people started scrambling to get his name added as a sponsor of the bill. They thought it would be a political liability if McCain's name was nowhere to be found on the bill since ethics reform is central to his campaign. Rather than take partisan advantage of the situation in the middle of the Presidential election, Obama welcomed McCain's co-sponsorship. It was a good bill, so Obama did not let electoral concerns get in the way of passing the bill.

You can find Obama's response to Katrina here. He has authored a number of bills to support veterans.

It is important to note that during Obama's first two years in the Senate, the D's were the minority party. The last two years, the R's have set records when it comes to the use of the filibuster. (The previous record was 61 filibusters in a two year Senate term. The Republicans only needed one year to break that) Under any circumstances, Obama has taken the lead on passage of a lot of legislation for a first term Senator, but it is an even more impressive record when you consider the obstructions he faced.

Looking over the legislation he is responsible for, it is striking how much of it is not the kind that gets lots of press. They are important bills, sometimes they are quite wonkish, but not at all the kind of legislation that a politician seeking "celebrity" would pursue. This is especially true of the bills Obama has proposed, but have not passed yet. His technology proposals, further ethics reform, regulating genetic testing, reducing medical malpractice the right way, etc. all fit the wonky, non-sexy pattern.

Hilzoy, who blogs both at The Washington Monthly and at Obsidian Wings, has been compiling a list of legislation sponsored by either Obama or McCain during the 109th and 110the Congress (the two when both of them have been in the Senate) Here is the list of legislation that they sponsored. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 109th Congress. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 110th Congress. I have not looked through all of these lists in detail yet, but they would be helpful to anyone wanting to compare their legislative accomplishments from the past 4 years. They would probably work great as a sleep aid, as well.

I am impressed with Obama's accomplishments but more excited by his forward looking policy proposals. His record of bipartisanship, and the manner in which he is conducting his campaign, makes me optimistic that he would have success in implementing those ideas.