U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is being criticized for her vote on a student loan bill.

In December of 2005, the Senate took up an omnibus deficit reduction bill aimed at cutting $39.7 billion from the federal deficit.

One section in the bill targeted student loans.

The bill cut costs by reducing subsidies to lenders and kept a shift from variable interest rates on loans to a 6.8 percent fixed rate.

At the same time, it increased loan limits for first- and second-year students and established a new $3.7 billion grant program for low-income college students studying math, science or certain foreign languages.

In all, it achieved $12.7 billion in net savings.

The Senate voted 50-50 on the bill, with Vice President Dick Cheney breaking the tie in favor. Dole voted for the bill. 

Republicans argued that the cuts in student aid would only affect banks and other lenders, while Democrats and college administrators said that two-thirds of the savings would be borne by students and their parents.

"This is the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for colleges, at the time.

But a Dole spokesman defended the bill.

"The bill had $9.2 billion in new education spending on students," wrote Dan McLagan in an e-mail to Dome. "The net effect is an increase in benefits for students and a decrease in payments to lending institutions." 

A recent TV ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes Dole for her vote on the bill.  

How bipartisan has U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole been?

With the candidates for Senate touting their ability to bridge the partisan divide, Dome decided to take a closer look.

One measure is the number of Democrats who signed onto legislation Dole sponsored.

In the 2007-08 session, the Salisbury Republican was the primary sponsor of 75 bills. Of them, 42 had no cosponsor, 18 had only Republican cosponsors and 15 had Democratic cosponsors.

Overall, her 87 cosponsors included 64 Republicans and 23 Democrats, or about a three-to-one ratio.

The most frequent Democratic cosponsors were Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Ted Kennedy. Lieberman, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, signed on to bills praising the Coast Guard for a cocaine seizure, creating a student loan program for worker training and committing 4 percent of the gross domestic product to military spending.

Kennedy signed onto the Coast Guard resolution, an amendment that would require the Navy to publicize Camp Lejeune's drinking water contamination, and a resolution honoring the U.S. Marshals' anniversary.

Dole also had Democratic cosponsors on bills recognizing the Lumbee tribe, giving a tax credit for hunger relief, amending the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Trade Act of 1974, starting a pilot program for pregnant college students, honoring Veterans Day, creating a Southeast Crescent Authority and researching flow batteries.