Obama also sponsored S.2433:110th ‘Global Poverty Act of 2007′ which is out of Foreign Relations and is on the Senate calendar. This bill faces a certain Presidential veto as it expands US foreign aid by a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 Billion over and above what the U.S. already spends” to reduce global poverty.

transparency bill in the US Senate

There is a S. 2590:109th Coburn “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006′ which was signed by the President on 9/26/2006.
Coburn is the sponsor. Obama, Carper, and McCain are original cosponsors.

Othere major bills with Obama’s name on them …

There is Feingold’s S.230:110th `Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act of 2007 ‘ which Obama, Lieberman and Tester cosponsored which is in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.

Obama did sponsor S.1977:110th Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act of 2007 but it is still in the Foreign Relations Committee. A competing bill: S.198 Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2007 has been thru Foreign Relations and is now in Armed Services.

This leaves us with no major bill with Obama as the chief sponsor having ever been passed in 3 1/2 years as a US Senator.

I think the magic of Sarah Palin speaks to a belief that so many of us share: the sense that we personally know five people in our immediate circle who would make a better president than the menagerie of candidates the major parties routinely offer.

One other thought that I’ve borne in mind in assessing “reformers”. There are two kinds. First, you’ve got those who really push for a change in the whole system. The McCain-Feingold bill is an example of that (though one could argue about how well it’s really worked). The other type is those who uncover other politicians’ corruptions and get a ton of ink and political stature that way. This goes back to Herbert Hoover, with Eliot Spitzer and Rudy Giuliani (when he was US Attorney) being more recent examples. I’m not saying that the second type is any less valuable, but understand that there’s often a political calculation in the second type of “reform”.