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President Barack Obama

Former President of the United States

Obama was President of the United States and was a Democrat. He served from 2009 to 2017.

He was previously a senator from Illinois as a Democrat from 2005 to 2008.

Photo of President Barack Obama [D, 2009-2017]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Obama is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2008 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Obama sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 11, 2008. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Obama was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:

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Does 4 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Obama sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (25%) Economics and Public Finance (13%) Science, Technology, Communications (12%) Law (12%) Commerce (10%) Health (10%) Labor and Employment (9%) Education (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Obama recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Obama voted Yea

Bill Passed 69/28 on Jul 9, 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, also called the FAA and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, is an Act of …

Obama voted Not Voting

Veto Overridden 80/14 on Jun 18, 2008.

Obama voted Not Voting

Bill Passed 79/14 on Dec 14, 2007.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Pub.L. 110–234, H.R. 2419, 122 Stat. 923, enacted May 22, 2008, also known as the 2008 U.S. …

Obama voted Yea

Missed Votes

From Jan 2005 to Oct 2008, Obama missed 314 of 1,300 roll call votes, which is 24.2%. This is much worse than the median of 2.2% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 2008. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

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Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: