Senate Bill Summaries:Measuring Cosponsorship and Voting in the Congress for a Legislative Scorecard of the 112th Congress
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The following is a list of the legislation we reference in generating our ratings for members of the United States Senate in the 112th Congress of 2011-2012. We pay attention to cosponsorship and voting behavior regarding these bills, classifying these actions as either progressive or regressive.
Liberal action is measured as support for legislation in the promotion of freedom, knowledge and security. Freedom is achieved when constitutional protections are respected and when people are treated with equality under law. Knowledge is pursued through rigorous support for science and education. Security comes from the protection of environmental resources, the strengthening of economic opportunity for people and the preservation of peace from erosion by wasteful, destructive militarism.
A legislative action is classified as Conservative if it erodes freedom, knowledge and security. When constitutional protections are disregarded, when discrimination under law is fostered, when the pursuit of knowledge is abandoned and science overruled, when wealth for a few matters more than prosperity for all, and when military adventurism becomes the articulation of foreign policy, our nation is headed a morally wrong and self-destructive direction.
Click on the title of each bill for complete and up-to-date information, including bill text and status. To review our scorecard ratings for your Senators on Capitol Hill, click here.
In mid-December 2011, the United States Senate voted on final passage of H.R. 1540, the final post-conference form of S. 1867. What was the subject of this bill coming up just before Christmas? Letting the U.S. government throw any person at all into detention forever without charge, as long as the government says (without any proof in a court of law) that this person is a terrorist. Indefinite detainees will never be brought to trial, will never face a jury of their peers as the constitution guarantees. A majority of senators voted to pass this bill, placing us all at risk from the exercise of unaccountable, unchecked power.
Legislative Tags: power indefinite detention criminal charges american civil rights constitution
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On February 15 2011, H.R. 514 was brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote after short notice, only a few minutes of debate, no committee consideration and no amendments allowed. This bill reauthorized provisions of the Patriot Act, a law that allows agents of the U.S. government to spy on, search and seize the property, papers and communications of individuals without a constitutionally-guaranteed finding of probable cause for that action.
Legislative Tags: patriot act, reauthorization, lone wolf, sneak-and-peek, roving wiretap, probable cause, constitution, 4th amendment, surveillance
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In 2010 there were 22,000 mercenaries hired by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan; in 2011 the number of hired mercenaries climbed to more than 28,000. By March 2011, there were more private military contractors paid by the U.S. in Iraq than there were U.S. soldiers. In remarks at an event introducing the bill, Representative Jan Schakowsky explained why this is a problem: "Military officers in the field have said contractors operate like cowboys, using unnecessary and excessive force uncharacteristic of enlisted soldiers. In 2007, guards working for a firm then known as Blackwater were accused of killing 17 Iraqis, damaging the U.S. mission in Iraq and hurting our reputation around the world. Later that year, a contractor employed by DynCorp International allegedly shot and killed an unarmed taxi driver."
Military contractors have often acted with disregard for human dignity and when they break the law have frequently used loopholes to escape accountability. The result is inexcusable, violence in the name of the United States with no calls for justice. S. 1428 would finally bring this physical, psychological and political disaster to an end, stopping the use of mercenaries for traditional military security and combat roles.
Legislative Tags: private military contractors impunity violent mercenaries besmirch war peace
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As the text of S. 186 points out, "October 7, 2011, will mark the 10-year anniversary of the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan." This war has cost more than a third of a trillion dollars and has spilled the blood of more than a thousand Americans and uncounted civilians of Afghanistan. Ten years into the war, the Taliban is just as strong, Afghanistan is just as fractured, and there is no clear way out. S. 186 declares simply, "It is the policy of the United States to begin the phased redeployment of United States combat forces from Afghanistan not later than July 1, 2011." S. 186 would have the President submit his plan for phased withdrawal from Afghanistan during the same year.
Legislative Tags: afghanistan, redeployment, war, withdrawal, anti-war
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S. 219, a bill introduced by Senator Jon Tester, would require senators to file campaign finance reports electronically with the Federal Election Commission, not on paper with the Senate. This may not sound like an important distinction, but the practical effect of the current system is to delay the processing of campaign contribution reports -- often until after an election is over -- and to make the discovery of unsavory campaign expenditures by reporters and citizens more difficult. Tester's bill, the continuation of a veteran effort by ex-Senator Russ Feingold in previous sessions of Congress, would increase efficiency within the government, increase transparency of information to reporters, and increase the accountability of Senators to American citizens.
Legislative Tags: electronic filing, information, disclosure, campaign, finance, contributions, fec, elections, transparency, jon tester
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For many years now, a bloc of Senators whose campaigns are funded by oil companies has argued, in spite all scientific evidence, that all the thermometers are wrong and that global warming isn’t really happening, that it’s all a hoax.
But now, this same bloc of Senators has thrown its support behind a piece of legislation not only admitting that climate change is real but also finally acknowledging that the government needs to act to deal with the problem of global warming. S. 228 is an explicit admission that global warming is real.
Section 3 of the Senate bill, also known as the Defending America's Affordable Energy and Jobs Act, specifically names seven chemicals including carbon dioxide and "any hydrofluorocarbon" as "greenhouse gases" and identifies each as a "substance subject to regulation, action, or consideration due to the contribution of the substance to climate change." S. 228 isn’t just an admission that global warming is real. It's an admission that the anthropogenic hypothesis, that global warming is due in large part to human activities, is correct.
Why would this group of Senators drenched in oil money sponsor such a bill? Because, after defining these substances as the source of the problem of global warming, S. 228 prohibits the federal government from taking action to clean them up and regulate their emissions. S. 228 stops any government effort to solve the problem. The most one can say about this head-in-the-sand bill is that it's honest.
Legislative Tags: greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, global warming, climate change, deregulation, toothless
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A group of politicians on Capitol Hill has organized to defeat a common enemy: The wolf. This isn’t a metaphorical wolf. These members of the House and Senate have targeted actual wolves, the animals, for destruction in the United States.
Two identical bills, S. 249 and H.R. 509, have been introduced in the 112th Congress. The legislation would exempt the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act, allowing wolves across the United States to be hunted to the point of extinction.
Legislative Tags: wolf, wolves, endangered species act, exemption, extinction, biodiversity, animals
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In recognition of the immense damage to be done by the mountaintop removal of the proposed Spruce Mine, dynamiting off over 2200 acres and pouring the heavy-metal toxic rubble into the headlands of West Virginia rivers, the Environmental Protection Agency has acted within its legal authority to block the commencement of Spruce Mine blasting. According to EPA scientists, the dumping of 110 million cubic yards of coal mine waste will bury more than six miles of streams, eliminating all wildlife and poisoning watersheds downstream. Arch Coal, which had planned to blow up the top of the mountain, made multiple monetary dontions to Senator Joe Manchin, who has in return introduced this legislation to strip the EPA of its environmental protection powers and force the program of mountaintop destruction and watershed poisoning forward. A number of the cosponsors of this bill are also amongst the recipients of Arch Coal largesse.
Legislative Tags: spruce mine, mountaintop removal, coal, mining, west virginia, streams, water, drinking water, environment, sickness, fish
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The problem with cluster bombs is threefold:
1. When used, they are distributed in large numbers across terrain;
2. They have a high failure rate, leaving many unexploded bombs;
3. They are small and typically shiny, disproportionately attracting the hands of curious children.
Cluster bombs are designed to kill people, not to damage buildings or roads. Like land mines, they continue to kill people long after the battle in which they were used. It is typical for a large number of these smaller bombs to remain undetonated, waiting to explode, after their initial deployment.
The Federation of American Scientists' report on the matter makes clear the danger of cluster munitions: "40 percent of the duds on the ground are hazardous and for each encounter with an unexploded submunition there is a 13 percent probability of detonation. Thus, even though an unexploded submunition is run over, kicked, stepped on, or otherwise disturbed, and did not detonate, it is not safe. Handling the unexploded submunition may eventually result in arming and subsequent detonation."
Cluster bombs kill civilians when they are used. Our government knows this, and yet our government continues to manufacture, use and sell cluster bombs to foreign countries.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, as proposed in the 112th Congress, forbids the United States government from spending money to use, sell or transfer cluster bombs unless the following requirements are met:
- The cluster bombs are proven to have a 1 percent or lower rate of malfunction
- The cluster bombs will not be used against anything but a clearly defined military target, in an area where there are no civilians and in places where civilians do not ordinarily live
- A plan is submitted, with the costs included, for cleaning up all the undetonated explosives that come from cluster bombs, whether they are used by the US military, or by other countries to whom the United States has supplied the cluster bombs
There is a waiver in the law for the first requirement (for the malfunctioning rate of 1 percent or lower), in cases in which it is "vital" to use cluster bombs in order to protect the security of the United States. However, even in such cases, the President is required to submit a report to Congress which explains how civilians will be protected from the cluster bombs, and revealing the failure rate of the cluster bombs, as well as whether the cluster bombs are equipped with self-destruct functions.
Legislative Tags: cluster bomb munitions civilian casualties innocent children death war arms transfers foreign weapons trade unsafe
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If passed, the Respect for Marriage Act (S. 598) would repeal DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act. Enacted in the 1990s, DOMA removed the presumption (based in the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution) that same-sex marriages carried out in one state would be recognized in other states or by the federal government. S. 598 would restore cross-state and federal recognition, recognition that different-sex marriages continue to enjoy.
Legislative Tags: doma defense of marriage act full faith and credit clause constitution marriage equality same-sex marriages lesbian gay
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To a person only following expressions of popular culture, it might seem that the United States has moved beyond discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transexuals. But in the workaday world, it's still legal for people to be fired from their jobs for no other reason than than their choice of whom to love. And a dirty not-so-secret secret of labor unions has been their historical practice of excluding gay and lesbian workers from full participation and leadership.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (or ENDA) would make workplace discrimination in hiring and promotions illegal, and would also prohibit discriminatory behavior against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of American labor unions. If passed, ENDA would bring the law into the 21st Century along with the majority of Americans who have realized what matters at work is what you do, not who you love.
Legislative Tags: homosexuality, job discrimination, sexual orientation, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, equality under law, labor unions, employment, enda
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"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." These are the American standards of nondiscrimination, chiseled into our legal bedrock in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
S. 821, the Uniting American Families Act, is a bill to bring America into closer compliance with the 14th Amendment by ending government discrimination according to the status of permanent couples. According to law, same-sex couples in permanent relationships cannot marry; only different-sex couples can. The creates two classes of couple in the United States. They are separate. Are they equal? Not currently. Under current immigration law, married immigrant spouses of citizens and permanent residents have a preferred route toward gaining permanent resident status themselves. Unmarried partners of citizens and permanent residents have this avenue closed to them. That is unequal treatment under law for immigrants under American jurisdiction, and it is an unequal abridgment of legal privilege for the citizens whose permanent partners wish to join them.
The Uniting American Families Act would end this status discrimination by amending various the immigration laws that discriminate against same-sex couples when one member of a couple is a citizen or permanent resident and the other is seeking citizenship or residency status.
Legislative Tags: discrimination anti-discrimination gay lesbian same-sex marriage couples married immigration policy border alien
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The Life At Conception Act, introduced as S. 91 in the Senate, would "implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person":
To implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person, and pursuant to the duty and authority of the Congress, including Congress' power under article I, section 8, to make necessary and proper laws, and Congress' power under section 5 of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress hereby declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being.
For purposes of this Act:
(1) HUMAN PERSON; HUMAN BEING- The terms `human person' and `human being' include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including, but not limited to, the moment of fertilization, cloning, and other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.
If a fertilized egg is really granted equal protection under the law as a human being per the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, a number of outcomes would follow:
- Abortions of all types, including in cases of rape, incest and threats to the health of the mother, would be outlawed, since under U.S. law there is no legal right to terminate an adult human life except as a punishment for murder, and fertilized eggs would be guaranteed equal protection under law.
- The Intra-uterine device (IUD), Plan B and the birth control pill would be outlawed. These contraceptives work by, at least in part, preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine wall. If S. 91 were passed and fertilized eggs were granted protection under law equal to that of adult human beings, women using these contraceptives would be guilty of felony, involuntary manslaughter at the least.
- In vitro fertility clinics would be outlawed or forced to radically change their policies so that every created embryo would be implanted into a woman, whether eventually viable or not. The hundreds of thousands of currently frozen embryos would become wards of the state with legal rights equal to yours.
- The termination of ectopic and molar pregnancies would be outlawed. Even though these pregnancies cannot survive and commonly end in the death of a mother when they run their course, they would be guaranteed protection under law equal to that of any person.
- The prevention of natural miscarriage (a very common outcome) would be made a public health project on equal footing with efforts to end epidemics, stop strokes or innoculate against childhood diseases.
Legislative Tags: pro-life abortion pro-choice fetus embryo life conception 14th amendment constitution equality under law
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Multinational oil and gas corporations are experiencing record profits while the world deals with spill disasters caused by their profitable activities. The supporters of S. 940, the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, are cognizant that big oil corporations are doing just fine on their own, and in this time of economic challenge for the nation tried to end special subsidies benefitting oil and gas corporations and burdening our federal budget. Under S. 940 these oil corporations would have stopped receiving special gifts and would have simply been expected to pay their fair share, just like the American people do. On May 18 2011, a majority of Senators voted for S. 940, but in a procedural move a minority blocked the bill from proceeding. As a result, American oil companies will continue to rake in huge subsidies while they accumulate gigantic profits.
Legislative Tags: oil, gas, exploration, tax deduction, subsidies, profits
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Did American politicians learn their lesson from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, in which a lack of full regulation and inspection led to a heavy economic and environmental toll? Perhaps only selectively so. Senator Mitch McConnell introduced S. 953 in the 112th Congress and brought it up for a vote on May 18 2011. The bill puts a fig leaf on oil rig spills by requiring studies of safety patterns, but in practice it makes it harder to challenge offshore oil drilling in a number of ways. If S. 953 had been passed, the government would have only 30 days to study and consider an application for offshore oil drilling before approving it, and Americans would have only 60 days to prepare and submit a challenge to that application. In any court hearing, it requires that the government's hastily-prepared account of the facts be presumed correct. Current leases for offshore oil drilling would be arbitrarily extended by a year, regardless of their record. In short, the bill rigs the review process for offshore oil drilling heavily in the oil industry's favor. Even if petitioners had won in the stacked review process, the remedies they could have obtained would have been limited. Fortunately for environmental standards, S. 953 was voted down.
Legislative Tags: oil spills, disaster, safety, regulation, judicial review, energy, drilling, offshore exploration, checks and balances
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The United States Government prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Federal law prohibits torture. Despite this, in November of 2011 six members of the United States Senate went out of their way to legalize torture and push government agents into using it against the people they detain. S. Amdt. 1068 to the Defense Authorization Act would have mandated the creation of a new set of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, and it would have required these techniques to be kept secret from the American people. These Senators tried to re-open the American torture chambers, and they tried to make it a crime for you to find out about it.
Legislative Tags: torture cruel unusual punishment extraordinary interrogation techniques
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As the year 2011 drew to a close, the United States Senate voted to let the U.S. Government to imprison people forever without charge, be they citizens or noncitizens, be they on U.S. soil or in foreign territory. Be they anybody at all that the government accuses of being a terrorist, they can be tossed into detention, without charges, forever, never having their case brought to trial. This is the definition of ultimate unaccountable power. The Feinstein Amendment, S. Amdt 1126, would have taken this language out of the final bill. But a majority of senators, by voting against the Feinstein Amendement, acted in favor of unaccountable indefinite detention without charge, for anybody, anybody at all.
Legislative Tags: constitution, guantanamo, indefinite detention, detainees, rights, human rights, civil rights, citizens, americans, war on terror, posse comitatus
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The way that U.S. citizenship works is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen. That's the standard set out in the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. But some members of the U.S. Senate are not happy with the Constitution. They want to change it to deny Americans their citizenship rights.
S.J. Res 2 is a constitutional amendment that, if passed, would deny citizenship to American-born babies if their parents are not themselves citizens. Such a change would move us toward the German model of citizenship, in which families who have lived in Germany for generations were denied citizenship because they lacked the so-called "virtue" of a German bloodline.
Do you think a German Heimatland notion of blood purity in citizenship belongs in our Constitution? Unfortunately, some of our Senators do.
Legislative Tags: blood line, heimatland, german, citizenship, nazi, constitution, citizen, 14th amendment, birth, birthright, born, amendment
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A law passed to ban the burning of the American flag would be promptly struck down as unconstitutional because the 1st Amendment to the Constitution declares that freedom of speech shall not be abridged. Some consider free speech to be a positive attribute of the American way of life; others consider it to be an impediment. S.J. Res 19 is a bill before the U.S. Senate to change the Constitution to abridge the impediment of free speech. S.J. Res. 19 would remove protection for speech that "desecrates" the flag of the United States. It would allow people to be thrown in prison for showing disrespect to the American flag. By declaring the flag to be a sacred object, the sponsors of this constitutional amendment would establish a national civic religion. The dogma of this religion: that it is necessary to dilute actual American freedom in order to protect the symbolic representation of that same freedom.
Legislative Tags: burning the flag desecration american free speech first amendment constitution
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"Net neutrality" is the principle that internet corporations should provide information at the same speed from all sources, no matter whether that source is a small web page like this one expressing individuals' facts and ideas, or a political start-up like Occupy Together that seeks to share information about the #Occupy movement, or a well-funded corporate website from Microsoft or Exxon Mobil.
S.J. Res. 6 was a bill in the Senate that would have ended the practice of net neutrality in the United States by overturning FCC Rule 10-201.
FCC Rule 10-201 mandates "Transparency. Fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and terms and conditions of their broadband services." But S.J. Res. 6 "prohibits such rule from having any force or effect."
FCC Rule 10-201 prohibits "Blocking. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services." But S.J. Res. 6 "prohibits such rule from having any force or effect."
FCC Rule 10-201 prohibits "Unreasonable discrimination. Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic. Fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices." But even the moderate "unreasonable" rule was too much for the supporters of S.J. Res. 6. Their bill "prohibits such rule from having any force or effect."
In a vote on November 10 2011, S.J. Res. 6 was turned back by a Democratic majority.
Legislative Tags: net neutrality, corporations, 99%, 1%, wealth, discrimination, speed, media, internet, fcc
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