Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton Records on Transparency, Lobbyists, and Ethics

This post is a special shoutout to Lynn Sweet at the Chicago Sun-Times and other media journalists who don’t seem to understand that this is a Democratic primary where informing voters about candidates’ records relative to each other will help them better decide which candidate will actually bring about the most change.

Here are the differences between Obama and Clinton on transparency and ethics reform. If I missed anything let me know.

	Obama	Clinton	Winner?
Takes campaign money from federal Washington Lobbyists	No	Yes	Obama
Takes money from state lobbyists	Yes	Yes	Tie
Took lobbyist money for Senate campaign	Yes	Yes	Tie
Takes federal PAC money	No	Yes	Obama
Took subsidized corporate jets before January 2006	Yes	Yes	Tie
Took subsidized corporate jets after January 2006	No	Yes	Obama
Released complete record of correspondences from previous political position before primaries	While his State Senate transcripts are publicly available, it is unclear whether his State Senate correspondences (appointments, meetings, and policy memos) exist. If so, no.	Records from WH years and as First Lady of Arkansas do exist. Has not called for full expedited release before primaries.	Tie?
Disclosed 2006-2007 earmarks	Yes	No	Obama
Released names of any fundraising bundlers	Yes; the first Democratic nominee to do so; (originally just did it for $50,000+)	Yes, the last major Democratic nominee to do so; just does it for $100,000+)	Tie for doing it, Obama for leadership on doing it
Released “cities or states” for fundraising bundlers	No	No	Tie
Detailed the names of bundlers at all financial levels	Yes	No, just provides info on $100,000+	Obama
Releases details about campaign fundraising events	No	No	Tie
Co-sponsored campaign finance reform legislation	Yes	No	Obama
Released income tax returns to the public	Yes	Yes Update: After much prodding, Clinton finally released her tax returns in April 2008, months after Obama released his returns	Tie for doing it; Obama for very early leadership in doing it
Use of Earmarks and Pork Spending	See The Hill’s comparison	See The Hill’s Comparison	Obama
Pledged to post all meetings as President online	Yes	No	Obama
Has posted all meetings as U.S. senator online	No	No	Tie
Has given an ethics speech and proposal	Yes - Proposal - Speech	Yes - Proposal - Speech	Tie
Passed ethics legislation at state level	Yes	No	Obama
Pushed ethics legislation in U.S. Senate	Passed a bill that created a searchable database that allows Americans to track how the government is spending their tax money! You can look at all federal government contracts. (www.usaspending.gov) Pushed new Senate ethics bill to require candidates to disclose their bundlers Pushed to create a Congressional Ethics Commission Pushed a law banning subsidized corporate flights for candidates		Obama

Last Updated 4/22/08.

Note: I didn’t put in Edwards because of space constraints, but he falls between Clinton and Obama on this issue. He talks about it all the time, but when you compare Edwards’ actual record to Obama, Obama outperforms him.

UPDATE: Also see: “Why I’m Not Impressed That John Edwards Never Took Money from a Washington Lobbyist“