Senate
Obama introduced his first legislation, the HOPE Act, which increased Pell Grants to $5100, and later joined Senator Kennedy on the Higher Education legislation that passed July 20, by a vote of 78-18. That legislation also included funding for Predominantly Black Colleges to assist with counseling, tutoring and other needs of low income students. It also creates the Teaching Residency Act which will create a school-based teacher preparation program in high needs schools to provide each teacher with a mentor, content instruction, classroom management skills, a master’s degree and state certification, and a 2 year follow-up program. On December 22, 2006, President Bush signed into law the “Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act,”
Introduced over 200 bills and resolutions, including Obama joined Charles Schumer (D-NY) in sponsoring S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls. The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act is in response to numerous incidents of misinformation in the 2006 election to prevent legal voters from voting.
S692 – The Democracy Index – Will collect election data for comparative analysis, waiting in line, voters directed to wrong polling place, rate and reasons for discarded ballots, provisional voting rates, registration and election day complaints, voting system malfunctions. S114 – Innovation Districts, would provide 20 grants for demonstration projects to identify best practices, retain highly effective teachers including pay incentives, improve teacher mentoring, place outstanding principal at every school, create Teacher Academies, and remove obstacles to innovation.
S116 - Summer Learning demonstration project to provide summer learning grants and encourage new teaching methods.
Introduced Amendment 3971 which improved the guest worker program in the Immigration Bill to include a formula for the Dept of Labor to calculate prevailing wage, require that jobs be advertised at the prevailing wage, and reduce the unemployment rate to 9% before guest workers can be hired in any given county. Lugar-Obama Act to address weapons proliferation.
Supported net neutralityAugust 2005,
Jan 2006,
Aug 2006