Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
served three terms in the
Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2005, when he was
elected Elected may refer to:
* "Elected" (song), by Alice Cooper, 1973
* ''Elected'' (EP), by Ayreon, 2008
*The Elected, an American indie rock band
See also
*Election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population ...
to the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
. During this part of his career, Obama continued teaching
constitutional law
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...
part time at the
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dis ...
as he had done as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.
In 1994, Senator
Alice Palmer decided to run for the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
, leaving the Senate's 13th district seat open. When filing opened in 1995 for her seat, Obama entered the race. Eventually, his challengers were disqualified and he won the Democratic primary unopposed in 1996. He won re-election in 1998 and 2002. During his Senate tenure, Obama was involved with a wide range of legislation.
While serving, he ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in the
2000 elections. In the redistricting following the
2000 Census, the Democrats gained control of the Illinois Senate, and Obama became more active in his legislation, which included work in areas such as
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
, labor,
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
,
campaign finance reform,
welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
, and community reinvestment.
State elections
First state Senate election, 1996
In November 1994, U.S. Representative
Mel Reynolds
Melvin Reynolds (born January 8, 1952) is an American politician from Illinois. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995. He resigned in October 1995 after a jury convicted him o ...
was re-elected to
Illinois's 2nd congressional district
Illinois's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Illinois. Based in the south suburbs of Chicago, the district includes southern Cook county, eastern Will county, and Kankakee county, as well as the city ...
despite being
indicted
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
for
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
and
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
. Both
Alice Palmer,
Illinois State Senator
The Illinois Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the State of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Under the I ...
for the 13th district Illinois Senate seat,
as well as
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Jesse Louis Jackson Jr. (born March 11, 1965) is an American politician. He served as the U.S. representative from from 1995 until his resignation in 2012. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the son of activist and former presidential can ...
, 29-year-old son of
Jesse Jackson Sr., showed interest in challenging Reynolds for his seat in the 1996
Democratic primary election
Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...
.
Jackson Sr. approached Palmer with a deal: the Jacksons would support her bid for Congress while she would support Jackson Jr. as successor in the State Senate. However, Jackson Jr. rejected that plan and insisted on running for Reynolds's district.
[Jackson and Watkins, p. 38.]
After Reynolds was convicted in August 1995 and resigned his seat on October 1, Illinois Governor
Jim Edgar
James Edgar (born July 22, 1946) is an American politician who was the 38th governor of Illinois from 1991 to 1999. Previously he served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1976 to 1979 and as Illinois Secretary of State ...
set November 28 as the date for a special primary election to fill the vacancy. Palmer, who had officially launched her Congressional bid on June 27, introduced and endorsed Barack Obama of
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
as her successor in her State Senate seat.
On November 28 Jesse Jackson, Jr. won the special primary election. Palmer, who finished a distant third, stated she wouldn't seek re-election to the State Senate and was undecided about again challenging Jackson in the March 1996 primary.
Nominating petitions for the State Senate elections could be filed between December 11 and December 18, 1995. Obama filed his petition with more than 3,000 signatures on the first filing day, followed by a nominating petition by Ulmer Lynch, Jr. On the last filing day, nominating petitions were not only filed by first-time candidates Gha-is Askia and Marc Ewell but also by Palmer, who declared that she was seeking re-election to the State Senate after all, accepting a draft by more than 100 supporters.
On December 26, the Obama campaign filed objections to the legitimacy of the nominating petitions of Obama's competitors.
[
]
On January 17, 1996, Palmer withdrew her bid for re-election after almost two-thirds of the 1,580 signatures on her nominating petitions were found to be invalid, leaving her 200 signatures short of the 757 needed to earn a place on the ballot.
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners had previously sustained an objection to the nominating petitions of Lynch and subsequently also sustained objections to the nominating petitions of Askia and Ewell, citing insufficient valid signatures in all three cases.
As a result, Obama won the Democratic nomination unopposed. On November 5, Obama won the race for the 13th Senate district, with 82 percent of the vote;
Harold Washington Party
The Harold Washington Party was founded in Chicago in the late 1980s to represent the interests of the city's African-American population who felt disenchanted with the mainline Democratic Party. The party was created ahead of the 1989 special ...
candidate David Whitehead (13%) and first-time
Republican Party candidate Rosette Caldwell Peyton (5%) also ran.
Second state Senate election, 1998
Obama was up for re-election in 1998; Illinois state senators serve one two-year term and two four-year terms each decade. In the March 17 primary, Obama won re-nomination unopposed, and first-time candidate Yesse Yehudah won the Republican nomination unopposed. At the November 3 general election, Obama was re-elected to a four-year term as state senator for the 13th district with 89% of the vote; Yehudah received 11% of the vote.
Third state Senate election, 2002
Obama won both the March 19 Democratic primary election and November 5, 2002 general election for the newly configured 13th district unopposed.
Early Senate career
On January 8, 1997, Obama was sworn in as senator. Early in his first term, the just-retired U.S. Senator
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music, both as a solo artist and as half of folk roc ...
contacted longtime Obama mentor, judge and former congressman
Abner Mikva
Abner Joseph Mikva (January 21, 1926 – July 4, 2016) was an American politician, federal judge, lawyer and law professor. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Mikva served in the United States House of Representatives representing Illinois' ...
suggesting that Mikva recommend Obama to
Emil Jones, Jr., the powerful Democratic leader of the state Senate. "Say, our friend Barack Obama has a chance to push this campaign finance bill through," Simon said in a telephone conversation, as recounted by Mikva in a 2008 interview, "Why don’t you call your friend Emil Jones and tell him how good he is." With Jones' support, Obama helped shepherd through a sweeping law that banned most gifts from lobbyists and personal use of campaign funds by state legislators.
During his first years as a state senator, Obama was a co-sponsor of a bill that restructured the Illinois welfare program into the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF ) is a federal assistance program of the United States. It began on July 1, 1997, and succeeded the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, providing cash assistance to indigent Ame ...
(TANF) program. He also helped get various pieces of legislation that established a $100 million Earned Income Tax Credit for working families, increased child care subsidies for low-income families, and required advance notice before mass layoffs and plant closings passed.
Campaign for Bobby Rush's congressional seat
In September 1999, Obama and fellow Senator
Donne Trotter
Donne Trotter (born January 30, 1950) is a former Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, representing 16th district from 1993 to 2003 and the 17th district from 2003 to 2018. Previously, he was a member of the Illinois House of Representative ...
(neither faced re-election that year) both decided to seek the 2000 Democrat nomination for the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
seat, held by four term incumbent candidate
Bobby Rush
Bobby Lee Rush (born November 23, 1946) is an American politician, activist and pastor who served as the U.S. representative for for three decades. A civil rights activist during the 1960s, Rush co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Pan ...
.
Rush had been badly defeated in the February 1999 Chicago mayoral election by
Richard M. Daley
Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term ...
— who won 45% of the African-American vote and even won Rush's own ward — and was thought to be vulnerable.
The support of some veteran Democratic fundraisers who saw Obama as a rising star, along with support of African-American entrepreneurs, helped him keep pace with Rush's fundraising in the district's most expensive race ever.
During the campaign, Rush charged that Obama was not sufficiently rooted in Chicago's black neighborhoods to represent constituents' concerns. Rush also benefitted from an outpouring of sympathy when his son was shot to death shortly before the election.
[ Obama said Rush was a part of "a politics that is rooted in the past" and said he himself could build bridges with whites to get things done.
But while Obama did well in his own Hyde Park base, he didn't get enough support from the surrounding black neighborhoods.][ Starting with just 10 percent name recognition, Obama went on to get only 31 percent of the votes, losing by a more than 2-to-1 margin despite winning among white voters.]
Later Senate career
After losing the primary for U.S. Congress to Bobby Rush, Obama worked to repair relations with black politicians and clergy members, telling them he bore no grudges against the victor. He also became more responsive to requests for state funding, getting money for churches and community groups in his district. Senator Trotter, then the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in 2008 that he knew Obama was responding more to funding requests "because the community groups in his district stopped coming to me".[
In September 2001, Democrats won a lottery to redraw legislative districts that had been drawn ten years earlier by Republicans and had helped ensure ten uninterrupted years of Republican control of the Illinois Senate.] At the November 2002 election, the Democratic remap helped them win control of the Illinois Senate and expand their majority in the Illinois House to work with the first Democratic Illinois governor in 26 years.
In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Health and Human Services Committee, after six years on the committee and four years as its minority spokesman. The new Democratic majority allowed Obama to write and help pass more legislation than in previous years. He sponsored successful efforts to expand children's health care, create a plan to provide equal health care access for all Illinois residents, and create a "Hospital Report Card" system, and worker's rights laws that protected whistleblowers, domestic violence victims, equal pay for women, and overtime pay.
His most public accomplishment was a bill requiring police to videotape interrogations and confessions in potential death penalty cases. Obama was willing to listen to Republicans and police organizations and negotiate compromises to get the law passed. That helped him develop a reputation as a pragmatist able to work with various sides of an issue.[ Obama also led the passage of a law to monitor ]racial profiling
Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence. Racial profiling involv ...
by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped.
In February 2002, Obama introduced SB 1789, which would have adopted instant-runoff voting
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...
(IRV) for congressional and state primary elections in Illinois and authorized IRV for local elections, although it did not ultimately pass. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.
References
External links
Chicago Tribune candidate coverage and biography
(includes several stories about his time in state senate)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Obama, Illinois Senate Career Of Barack
Illinois Senate career
Obama, Barack
1997 in Illinois
1998 in Illinois
1999 in Illinois
2000 in Illinois
2001 in Illinois
2002 in Illinois
2003 in Illinois
2004 in Illinois
Senate career of Barack Obama
Early lives of the presidents of the United States