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

Almost all senators introduce bills like this from time to time, so Hillary is not unique in this regard. She just happens to do it more often than anyone else. (A cynic might also claim that she does this to increase her "bills sponsored" statistic for when nerds like me look at these sorts of numbers).

The second reason for this pattern may be that she lacks follow-through. This could be for any number of reasons:

She is ineffective at articulating the importance of her positions in committees or on the Senate floor.
She lacks the collaborative skills to rally support around her legislation.
She is poorly organized, or unfocused.
She is more concerned about the symbolic trappings of her bills than their actual effect on Americans.

Whatever the reason, none of these attributes speak well to Hillary's leadership abilities. As she is running a campaign themed leadership and competence, I think we need to scrutinize record, and ask why she has been mostly an empty pantsuit in the Senate.

For those people who are inclined to support Hillary, I would ask that you consider what specific actions in her Senate tenure give you confidence about her leadership abilities. From what I can tell, while her votes in the Senate have generally gone the right away (excluding Iraq and Kyl-Liberman, naturally), she has demonstrated below-average leadership abilities.

Edit:
Looks like GovTrack was including data from Ben Cardin's House voting record in his statistics, and that's why he was included in the first version in spite of having been elected in 2006. Cardin's now been removed.

Edit #2. I should have included numbers for John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Obama has had 1 bill passed in 3 years in the Senate (2.0 per term)

Hillary has had 2 bills passed in 7 years in the Senate (1.7 per term)

Edwards had 0 bills passed in 6 years in the Senate. (0 per term, obviously)

So, pick your poison. None of the three leading Dems do especially well in this category. And obviously this isn't the only thing we should be considering in the POTUS race. If we were, we'd all be voting for Joe Biden, and there would have been a "Draft Diane Feinstein" movement back in January.

But Hillary is the one playing the experience card. The intent of this diary is to point out that there is not so much evidence to back up her claim up.

Edit #3 I've identified the two bills that Hillary sponsored that became public law.

S.1241 (108th Congress)
Title: A bill to establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site in the State of New York, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] (introduced 6/11/2003) Cosponsors (1)
Related Bills: H.R.305
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 108-438 [GPO: Text, PDF]
Senate Reports: 108-295

S.3613 (109th Congress)
Title: A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2951 New York Highway 43 in Averill Park, New York, as the "Major George Quamo Post Office Building".
Sponsor: Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] (introduced 6/29/2006) Cosponsors (1)
Related Bills: H.R.5708
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 109-311 [GPO: Text, PDF]

Not exactly big stuff.

By contrast, Obama's one bill is a little more substantive.

[109th] S.2125 : A bill to promote relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 12/16/2005) Cosponsors (12)
Committees: Senate Foreign Relations; House International Relations
Latest Major Action: Became Public Law No: 109-456 [GPO: Text, PDF]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/21/12629/271