The Information Technology Industry Council issues a high-tech scorecard for the 110th Congress, with 53 senators and 111 House members earning perfect tech vote marks. Although they both missed key votes, President-elect Barack Obama and his Republican challenger for the White House, Sen. John McCain, managed to earn a 100 percent pro-tech score.President-elect Barack Obama hit 100 percent on the Information Technology
Industry Council's Congressional
Vote Scorecard for the 2007-2008 U.S. House and Senate session released
Dec. 15. In all, 53 senators scored 100 percent on ITI's scorecard.
ITI based its rankings on five key Senate tech votes considered
"critical" by the Washington
trade group that counts among its members Adobe, Cisco, Dell, eBay,
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft,
Oracle and Research In Motion.
The key votes were on the America COMPETES Act, the U.S.-Peru Trade
Agreement, comprehensive energy legislation, the tax extenders package that included
renewal of the research and development tax, and the Wall Street bailout
package. In each case, ITI urged a "yes" vote.
Obama was absent on three of the key votes (trade agreement, energy
legislation and tax extenders) but voted yes on the America COMPETES Act and
the financial rescue package. Sen. John McCain, Obama's Republican competitor
for the White House, also scored 100 percent on the ITI dipstick, missing all
the votes except for the bailout plan.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, who challenged Obama in the Democratic primaries,
missed the votes for the U.S.-Peru trade agreement and energy legislation, but
still scored 100 percent for her "yea" votes on the America COMPETES
Act, the tax extenders bill and the financial rescue package. Vice
President-elect Joe Biden missed four of the five key votes, although he was
present to vote "yes" on the rescue package.
Click here for more on how Obama, McCain and Clinton
voted on key tech issues.
Of senators who were present for all five votes, 26 Republicans and 18
Democrats scored 100 percent, including Sen. Daniel Inouye, the outgoing
chairman of the Senate Science and Commerce Committee, and Sen. Jay
Rockefeller, the incoming chairman of the panel.
"This scorecard is an important benchmark and a useful tool,"
Ralph Hellmann, senior vice president for ITI's Government Relations, said in a
statement. "Lawmakers can use it as a reference, tech companies can check
it to see how their own representative has voted, and journalists can refer to
it to inform their coverage of big issues."
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., had the lowest mark on ITI's scorecard with a 25 percent
ranking. DeMint voted "yes" on the trade agreement, skipped the tax
extenders package and voted "no" on the America COMPETES Act, energy
reform and the financial bailout. Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and James
Inhofe, R-Okla., scored 40 percent to follow DeMint.
In the House, 111 members earned 100 percent marks on a different package of
bills that included patent reform and the Internet tax moratorium. Rep. Ron
Paul, R-Texas, scored a zero in the ITI rankings, missing three votes and
voting "no" on patent reform, the Internet tax moratorium and the
financial bailout.