Our bipartisan bills would require the Departments of State and Defense to come up with a clear plan to strengthen coordination, diplomacy and crisis management in the region—under this Administration and the next.
Support and work to pass legislation directing the Department of State to designate lead responsibility for South China Sea diplomatic engagement, develop a diplomatic engagement strategy, and coordinate with allies and partners on South China Sea security, legal, economic, and crisis-management issues.
Occurrences
The Senators’ bipartisan South China Sea Strategy Act would ensure that the U.S. Department of State is strategically engaging on the South China Sea with our allies and partners and coordinating with interagency partners to achieve our objectives. Specifically, it would direct the Department to: Designate lead responsibility for coordinating South China Sea diplomatic engagement; Establish a Strategy for Diplomatic Engagement on the South China Sea to outline the United States’ objectives for engagement with allies and partners on all matters in the South China Sea, covering security, diplomatic, legal and economic issues; Address specific priority themes for engagement, including bolstering defense capabilities, reinforcing maritime law enforcement capacity building resilience to foreign malign influence and supporting economic development; and Establish a clear mechanism for interagency and international coordination on crisis management for scenarios short of war in the region.
Evidence
This bill has the status Introduced. Latest Action: Senate - 05/23/2019 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Congress.gov lists Tammy Duckworth among the bill's cosponsors. The bill status is still 'Introduced'; the latest action shown is that it was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on May 23, 2019.
Assessments
Tammy Duckworth appears to have made a concrete legislative effort by cosponsoring South China Sea legislation in the 116th Congress, which aligns with the promise to support and work to pass such a measure. But the cited bill never advanced beyond introduction and referral to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 23, 2019, and there is no evidence here that the promised policy was enacted either during that term or later through her material contribution. Under the federal office standard, this is a serious attempt without delivery, so it counts as never with effort credit.
Tammy Duckworth supported the 2019 South China Sea legislation as a Senate cosponsor, but the evidence shows the bill only reached introduction and committee referral and was not enacted. That is a serious legislative effort, but the promised policy outcome was not delivered.