Legislative Records

What Ezra Klein said about this Kos diary which reaches some unfair to Clinton conclusions based on a comparison of the Clinton-Obama records in the Senate.

I would further note that looking at what legislation a Senator has or hasn't cosponsored can get pretty misleading. Cosponsoring a piece of legislation that's not going anywhere is the ultimate in congressional cheap talk. What's more, Senators sometimes sign on to legislation they don't actually favor (see the Republican co-sponsors of Ron Wyden's bill) in order to be able to change things around. And sometimes taking a position in favor of something actually means the reverse -- I recall a noteworthy moment at YearlyKos last summer where Clinton was trying to brush off worries about her commitment to political reform by noting that she's on record in favor of full public financing of federal campaigns. Well, I favor that, too, but it's not going to happen and Clinton's never done anything to try to lay the groundwork for making it happen. In effect, her support for public financing is a beard to give cover to her opposition to smaller-scale, more realistic political reform proposals.

Which isn't to say that she's uniquely duplicitous in these regards, I just happen to be familiar with that particular issue. You see something similar with John Dingell and the carbon tax, and, indeed, with tons and tons of other legislators. If you want to understand people's records, you have two decent options. One is to go totally "dumb" and use something like DW-NOMINATE which soaks up every single vote cast. There the size of the data set helps iron out the flaws in the individual data points and gives you a crude big-picture sense of where things stand (both are liberal, and Obama somewhat more so). The other way to go is to go "smart" in which case you need to actually speak to people who work with congress on some issue you're concerned with and ask them how helpful or not some Senator or other has been on some issue. That'll involve voting records, cosponsored legislation, media appearances, floor statements, timing, committee antics, secret promises, friends of friends, etc.

Going for the middle ground seems appealing, but the odds are that it's just going to wind up misleading.

Comments

It's too bad we don't have people whose job it is to really take a careful look at these candidates, talk to their fellow legislators, and really vet their records. They could come back to the public and, oh, I don't know, "report" on their conclusions.

It's really a damn pity there aren't people like that around.

Posted by Persia | February 22, 2008 3:30 PM

I don't think the point of some of these posts comparing legislative records is to say Obama is a better Senator than Clinton. It's simply to point out that yes, Obama is a real politician. He has good ideas. He's done stuff. A lot of stuff. And he's good at being a legislator - maybe not the best ever, but certainly better than most Senators with two or three years under his/her belt. Parse it however you will, the point is that Obama offers more than uplifting rhetoric.

Posted by Craig | February 22, 2008 3:38 PM

Seems to me that the talk about legislative records is leaving out some important information. Confirmation votes for appointments, potential filibusters, cloture votes, etc. are also important. In the context of serving in the Senate as a member of the opposition party perhaps significantly more important the votes on laws or sponsoring bills.

Posted by gecko1 | February 22, 2008 3:39 PM

RE: Persia

Of course they would come back with a "report" that said, "one person said their legislation sucks, another person said it was awesome....more importantly, Wolf, The Best Political Team on Television is reporting tonight that John McCain is a Staight-Talking Maverick. More on that ahead."

Posted by Andruw | February 22, 2008 3:40 PM

I second Persia's comment. It would be really nice if people were paid to do such things, and heck, maybe even had paid research assistants and fact-checkers to help them. Then maybe some paid editing-type-person could look over it and get it published in some sort of periodically released document.

But until then we must content ourselves with the work of conscientious bloggers working in their spare time. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has a series of 3 posts listing the substantive bills and amendments that Clinton and Obama have co-sponsored *at the earliest possible date* (which, admittedly, is only a proxy for taking real action to get legislation written and passed... but it at least weeds out symbolic, free-riding cosponsorship). Here's the URLs for these 3 posts:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/solutions-adden.html
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/but-wait-theres.html
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/all-the-rest.html

Posted by Bill Kaminsky | February 22, 2008 3:42 PM

And this is why it's so hard for legislators to win the Presidency. Fortunately, it is Senator vs. Senator this time around, so it will be a fair fight.

Posted by Adam Herman | February 22, 2008 3:57 PM

I rarely agree with George Will, but he makes a very cogent point in regards to the "legislative experience" issue:

Patrick Buchanan was one of our most politically "experienced" individuals ever elected President: 10-year House member, ambassador to Russia and Britain, and 9-year Senator who served as Chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations, before winning the Presidency in 1856.

Abraham Lincoln was the least "experienced" individual ever elected President: 1-term House member who participated in no meaningful business and sponsored no legislation, a single failed Senate run... Before winning the Presidency in 1860 and 1864.

Buchanan was probably the worst American President. Lincoln was probably the best.

I cannot off the top of my head name recent "legislative accomplishments" for either Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama (and a quick questioning of my friends and family yielded the same blank results).

They both have many accomplishments, but Senate Bills are not a normal dinner-table conversation topic even among the politically astute.

And I sincerely question whether fitness for the Presidency is determined by one's line-up of cosponsored legislation.

By that (Chris Matthews) standard, G.W. never stood a chance against Al Gore or John Kerry.

Oh well.

Posted by Miguel Pakalns | February 22, 2008 4:57 PM

I read Ezra's post. I read the comments to Ezra's post. What this guy said:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=02&year=2008&base_name=clinton_and_obamas_legislative#comment-6157130

Posted by Phoebe | February 22, 2008 6:12 PM

At a certain point, beyond figuring out their main interests, for presidential candidates, it's useless information, because they are applying for an executive job, perhaps the major executive job in the world.

It's not just coincidence that so many state governors have won the presidency rather than legislators since the Federal government grew truly huge.

It would be more helpful in many ways to know how well they used and mobilized their staff than how well they know how to legislate.

Now if they were a legislative whip, that would be a helpful skill for a president, would it ever.

I also think that if presidential candidates come from the legislature, it is more helpful to see how they handle questioning executive branch witnesses in committee hearings than how they handled legislation. That's one area where I feel know something of Clinton's skillsets as a bossman and where I can't much on Obama. If they had hearings at the Illinois statehouse and he was recorded, I would take those with equal interest, I don't think the level matters, it's just evidence of the skills.

That his campaign still currently promotes the big rallies and speeches doesn't help on this front, either, if I could see him interacting one-on-one with people aksing him questions other than journalists, I might be able to get some sense of his ability as a manager, but they are not giving that, so he remains a cipher as to executive skill. I don't give the "look at the successful campaign he has run" argument too much weight, although it's fair to give it some--the executive skills there mainly go to the campaign manager and that's a single hire by the candidate.

All I can say is, luckily for the Democrats, the GOP frontrunner is a Senator too.

Posted by artappraiser | February 22, 2008 10:20 PM