Beyond the Dome

There was a bit of a jarring moment on Wednesday as Barack Obama, campaigning in Norfolk, Virginia, made a bold statement about his Senate record as he defended himself against John McCain’s attacks. “Students this year in Virginia will see an increase in their Pell Grants because of my work in the Senate,” Obama told the crowd.

Really? He did that all by himself? Maybe Obama is a more powerful senator than anyone thought.

In reality, an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award for needy college students has been more of a cause than an accomplishment for Obama. Yes, one could argue he had a role in making the awards more generous — but only in the sense that he was in favor of it, as opposed to being there when it mattered.

Obama’s aides note that the first bill he ever introduced in the Senate, in March 2005, was a measure to increase Pell Grants. It was referred to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and that’s as far as it got. (That shouldn’t be a big surprise — the Republicans were in charge of the committee at the time, and Obama wasn’t even on it.)

Things didn’t really get moving on Pell Grants until last year, when Congress, now under Democratic control, passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which increases the maximum Pell Grant award from $4,310 to $5,400 over the next five years.

That’s the law Obama was referring to at the campaign rally, his aides say. At the time, he put out a press release noting that he “sat on the Conference Committee that won these improvements in the bill” — referring to the joing House-Senate committee that worked out the final language of the bill.

Well, yes, but only in the sense that every member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was on the conference committee. (Obama joined the education panel at the beginning of 2007.) And even then, it appears that Obama wasn’t actually there when the conference committee did its work. It only met once — on Sept. 5, 2007 — and a committee tally sheet indicates that Obama was not one of the senators who showed up.

Obama wasn’t even around to vote for the bill in the full Senate. Of the 21 votes the Senate took — on amendments, procedural motions, passing the original bill, and clearing the final version for President Bush’s signature — Obama only made three of the votes, all of which were on relatively minor amendments and took place during a one-hour block of time on one day of the debate in July 2007. In other words, he dropped by, but he didn’t stick around.

Even McCain, who was also in the thick of his own presidential race, showed up for the vote on the bill. He won’t be able to claim credit for that, since he voted against the bill. So if Obama wanted to attack McCain for voting against more generous Pell Grants, that would be a fair charge.

But McCain isn’t the one who is claiming credit for increasing Pell Grants through “my work in the Senate.” At a time when the Republicans are trying so hard to depict Obama as a senator who has never accomplished anything — and at a time when he’s arguing that it is the McCain campaign that is playing fast and loose with the facts — he can’t afford too many slip-ups like this one.