Paul’s campaign says its candidate has also won legislative victories by amending bills written by others.
During the fight over the Dodd-Frank financial regulation in 2010, for instance, Paul won a partial victory: A provision was included to require a limited audit of the Federal Reserve’s transactions. The audit was still not as broad as Paul had long insisted.
Benton said that, in that case, Paul had marshaled more than 300 lawmakers behind his idea. “He had some of the most progressive Democrats to some of the most conservative Republicans on the same bill,” Benton said.
But Paul’s House colleagues say they have rarely seen him put forth the kind of sustained lobbying effort necessary to get a big idea passed into law.
Paul “has his ideas and puts them out there. And if people want to get on them, they can,” said Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.). “But I don’t necessarily think that he goes out and works — lobbies for them — like some of the younger guys.”
A quiet approach
For most members of Congress, passing a bill starts with one-on-one lobbying: They look within their party, or their state’s delegation, to build up a large number of co-sponsors. Then a member lobbies the relevant committee chairman to take up the bill, using those co-sponsorships as proof of support.
Other Republicans said Paul takes a more low-key approach. He will seek out a small circle of lawmakers who have supported him on previous issues, and he will let potential allies come to him.
“He has a particular spot on the floor: about four rows up on the middle aisle,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). If you want to be lobbied, Chaffetz said, you walk by, and “he’ll say, ‘Hey, Jason, I want you to look at this.’ ”
That approach has paid limited dividends, even in the current Congress, which is controlled by Paul’s fellow Republicans. Among his 47 new bills, Paul has attracted a very large number of co-sponsors for only one, which demands a full audit of the Fed. It remains bottled up in committee.
His other bills are as ambitious as ever. In H.R. 1098, Paul proposes allowing private groups to coin their own money to circulate alongside dollars and cents. Some libertarian groups like the idea, saying that the new money could be useful if the dollar loses value through inflation.
Other experts have their doubts. “We’d have to spend probably the first four hours of every day trying to figure out which currency to use today,” said James Livingston, a professor at Rutgers University who studies economic history.
Paul has attracted no co-sponsors for that bill, and he doesn’t appear to be pulling out all the stops to find some. The Congressional Record contains a March 15 speech from Paul: “I urge my colleagues to consider the redevelopment of a system of competing currencies.”
But the speech is a common congressional illusion: Paul didn’t give it aloud to his colleagues. Instead, he simply wrote it and had it inserted into the record later.
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