That's a complete mischaracterization of the bill. That bill contained an insane amount of shit including the Violence Against Women Act and an assault weapons ban. Yes, that was ONE output of the bill, but too many people think that's the only thing it did.

In terms of MAJOR legislation, I'm not exactly sure tbh. I know he's done more than most but it really depends on what your definition of major is.

Biden was either the ranking member or head of both the Judiciary committee and Foreign Affairs committee for YEARS so that's pretty substantial. I imagine that all the good and bad that came out of those committees and the Senate as a whole has Biden influence.

along with term limits, this shit has to go. having the same cabal of inept politicians on these important committees makes it nearly impossible new members to come in and influence meaningful improvements. because you gotta fit in to get in.
clean them out every 3 election cycles. it's no wonder the swamp rots with people on these committees for 2-3 decades.

This post was edited by excellence on Aug 24 2020 01:29pm

I have mixed feelings about it. Things like seniority are kinda dumb if you ask me. Just because you've been there longer doesn't mean you'd be better at the job.

#Gleichschaltung 2020

Fair enough I guess. Still seems as if the 94 crime bill was the most prominent piece of legislation with a strong Biden influence, and it's track record seems mixed at best, even if we include its other aspects. And this is not just me being a partisan hack, Biden and this crime bill have received a ton of flak from within the Democratic party too.


Since you brought up the terminology: based on what you know so far, would you characterize Biden's 40 year tenure in the Senate as that of a 'doer'?

I'd probably put Biden at the 75% mark if I had to guess. Biden has 42 sponsored bills that were enacted whereas Klobuchar has 34. Grassley has 89. Granted, some committees will be more "productive" than others if you use legislation as your metric. Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, etc. will be less productive than Budgeting, Agriculture, etc.

So Grassley has been in the Senate since 1980 so he has slightly more Senate experience than Biden did...yet had over twice as much sponsored legislation passed. Grassley is on the Judiciary, Budget, Agriculture, and Finance committees.

You can check this out here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/marco_rubio/412491

I think if you really dug in, you'd have to count sponsorships, amendments offered, and committee seniority and probably normalize that based on committee output as well as Congressional polarization.

Not really Gleichschaltung, they specifically did not give Trump or his cronies the power to unilaterally change the party platform.

This is rather the party trying to cover how empty and devoid of concrete policy proposals this campaign has been. It's quite shocking really why neither Trump nor the RNC have so far been able to lay out a rationale for why he wants a second term, or what he would want to do with it, other than preventing the Democrats from enacting their agenda.

From a more cynical lens, one could argue that the party establishment doesnt want to commit the party, ideologically or in terms of its platform, to new ideas and policies out of Trump-world before an election where he seems headed for defeat. With this resolution, the party apparatus effectively adjourned the intraparty struggles over its identity and future direction in the post-Trump era until after the 2020 election, and thus implicitly conditions the future direction of the party on the outcome of 2020.

They're imho setting themselves up to go full "Trumpism was a mistake, and we never really got behind him anyway" if Trump is defeated in a landslide. Which would of course be utter bullshit.

It was a good bill. It is just politically untenable to tell the truth about crime today, especially if youre a democrat.

I'm sort of with you. People often forget but crime was REALLY bad in the 80s and 90s. Like, REALLY bad. I think the issue is that we don't update bills often enough. I'd say you need to look at things every 5 years as opposed to every 20.

Klobuchar has spent 13 years in the Senate, Biden had 40. So if she stands at 34 bills after 13 years, this compares favorably with Biden's 42 bills in 40 years.

But you're right with the rest of your post, there would be a ton we have to account for to get a proper comparison.
The bottom line, imho, is that Biden has neither been a total backbencher in the Senate, nor has he been someone who qualifies for Thor's "done a shit load in the time they've been in office"-criterion.

And like we pointed out, Biden's body of work contains a lot of questionable legislation that cannot be considered a comprehensive success.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 24 2020 02:05pm