Last night, Chris Matthews slipped a cog and blistered some mild-mannered Texan standing in for the Obama campaign about what legislation has Obama gotten passed, ever in his life.
One answer is that Obama, having been a legislator for several years longer than has Ms. Clinton, got his fair share of bills passed in the Illinois state legislature, during the period when he was in the majority party and during which time he enjoyed a favorable relationship with the Senate leader, Emil Jones - or so said that Obama book by David Mendell I read earlier in the month.
As it says here on the Waldo-styled GovTrack website, "Hillary Clinton has sponsored 354 bills since Jan 22, 2001, of which 307 haven't made it out of committee (Extremely Poor) and 2 were successfully enacted (Average, relative to peers)."
Of course, seniority and majority have more to do with the outcome of the "Dance of Legislation" than anything else, and so it is unsurprising that so few bills sponsored by Ms. Clinton have passed.
2 comments:
I know that it was peripheral to your post, but thank you for the link to Eric Redman's fine book, Dance of Legislation. I remember reading that book, some 30-odd years ago, on the recommendation of a political science instructor in college. A great insider's view on the sausage-making that is legislation.
One of my favorites as well, from my undergraduate days.
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