I had forgotten about this until someone reminded me of this interview from Chris Matthews on Barack Obama's accomplishments.
This must have been before Matthews got that tingling running up his leg for Obama.
Chris Matthews grills State Sen. Kirk Watson (D-TX) on Barack Obama's legislative accomplishments, February 19 2008
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As a state senator in Illinois from 1997 to 2004, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws. There's a lot more to be done but the reason so many IL politicians aren't getting away with as much is because these laws are shining a light on them.
He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. All that has helped keep low income workers working and off welfare rolls.
In 2001, as co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported the governor's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures. We need to do this at the federal level to keep the real estate market from collapsing.
In 2003, Obama sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations. That's saved the state and cities in IL millions in wrongful incarceration lawsuits, stopped murderers from walking free because the cops tortured confessions out of them or the wrong suspects, and kept innocent people off death row.
In January 2003, Obama became chair of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. In his 2004 campaign, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms. If'd you'd like to see murderers get their just desserts instead of living out their lives wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars appealing their sentences these laws ought to be adopted nationally.
Obama has sponsored 136 bills in Congress since becoming a U.S. Senator. He has co-sponsored 619. I think 16 of those bills and 71 amendments became law.
In January 2007, Obama wrote along with Tom Coburn (R-OK) the Honest Government and Open Leadership Act, which was signed into law. John McCain says he'll make earmarkers "famous". Obama's already made them put up all earmarks on the internet for everybody to see. And he did it over Reid's and Clinton's objections.
He introduced the Iraq War De-Escalation Act in 2007. That became the bill congress passed and Bush vetoed. The Iraqis, the US government and everybody but McCain have no agreed with Obama's timeline for getting us out of Iraq.
He later sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges. PTSD and especially TBI are serious wounds that must be treated. IEDs cause a lot of tramatic brain injuries that are hard to diagnose that the military was doing it's best to ignore.
He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nucelar terrorism. That ought to stop Dick Cheney and Halliburton from selling oilfield equipment to Iran thru foreign subsidiaries like they did in the 1990s.
He also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries. Frankly one year isn't enough and it's a shame something like this would have to be tacked on to the SCHIP bill.
Obama has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Environment and Public Works Committee and Veteran's Affairs Committee. He currently also serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. He is chair of the subcommittee on European Affairs.
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