Fact Check: Obama's 'present' votes

[ProSense]

Fact Check: Obama's 'present' votes

Thu Jan 24

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Barack Obama's rivals in the Democratic presidential race contend he sometimes voted "present" on tough issues rather than take a firm stand.

"In the Illinois state Senate, Senator Obama voted 130 times 'present.' That's not yes, that's not no. That's maybe," Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a debate Monday.

Obama responds that Clinton is cherry-picking a handful of votes from a long legislative career and then distorting them.

THE SPIN: Obama portrays himself as someone voters can trust to tell the truth and skip the usual political games. Clinton and John Edwards are using his "present" votes to offer a different picture — one of Obama ducking tough issues or refusing to support common-sense legislation.

THE FACTS: Obama acknowledges that over nearly eight years in the Illinois Senate, he voted "present" 129 times. That was out of roughly 4,000 votes he cast, so those "presents" amounted to about one of every 31 votes in his legislative career.

Illinois legislators often vote "present" and for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes blocs of lawmakers do it as a protest in some dispute over rules and procedures. Obama was often joined in his "present" votes by 10 or 20 other senators.

In other cases, lawmakers do it to signal objections to the details of a measure that they support in principle. They also use "present" votes as strategic moves to defeat legislation or, of course, simply to avoid taking a firm position.

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