ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR

In 1996, Barack was elected to the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat

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in January 1997 wasn’t met with a red carpet or open arms. Instead, many of his fellow senators cast a rather cold eye on the new senator from the South Side. Many ensconced in the senate chamber thought of Barack as an aloof Ivy Leaguer who spent a lot of time talking about his years as

a community organizer and his Harvard Law degree. Kirk Dillard, a Re- publican from suburban Chicago, said that Barack’s Harvard Law degree and his position as a law professor made some eyes roll. 10 Some described Barack as an elitist and noted that many of his speeches were focused on policy and were highly intellectual—qualities welcomed by Barack’s university colleagues but often poorly received by working-class voters, even though, during his state senate campaign, his platform included helping working families on Chicago’s South Side, an area that is described by The Almanac of American Politics as “the nation’s largest urban black community for nearly a century.” 11

When asked by Ronald Roach, in his 2004 article entitled “Obama Rising” in Black Issues in Higher Education, how he assessed the impact of having been a community organizer on choosing politics as a career and making a predominantly black urban community his political base, Barack answered, “I became a community organizer as a direct result of my work and study in college. I was greatly inspired by the civil rights movement . . . my coming back to Chicago, I think, opened up my potential—I consider (the experience) an extension of my college education because a lot of the things that I had read about in books I had to try to implement. It wasn’t always as easy as I thought, but it also con- firmed my belief in the need to give everyday folks a handle on their own destiny. And all my work since that time has been shaped by the values that were forged during those years as a community organizer.” When the author asked Barack how his experience as a law professor shaped him as a political leader, Barack responded, “One of the things that an effec- tive professor learns is how to present both sides of an argument . . . and

I think that being able to see all sides of an issue, having been trained in presenting all sides of an issue in the classroom, actually helps me ques- tion my own assumptions and helps me empathize with people who don’t agree with me.” 12

When Barack, a Democrat, was elected, the state capitol was under Republican control. He was known as a committed liberal and a progres- sive Democrat. He wrote later that he understood state politics “as a full- contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows nor the occasional

blind-side hit.” 13 Paul L. Williams, a lobbyist in Springfield, Illinois, and

a former state representative, said that Barack “came with a huge dose of practicality,” and characterized Barack’s attitude as, “O.K., that makes

55 sense and sounds great, as I’d like to go to the moon, but right now I’ve

T E A C H I N G C O N S T I T U T I O N A L L AW

only got enough gas to go this far.” 14 As senator, Barack served on the public health and welfare committee and the judiciary and local government committees. Still in his thirties, Barack soon became a leader, developing a style that was methodical, in- clusive, and often pragmatic. Working with those on the other side of the political aisle, he had a prominent role in drafting bipartisan legislation and health care reform. He also worked to make changes designed to curb racial profiling in Illinois and to make capital punishment more impartial. State Senator Kirk W. Dillard, a Republican, stated, “When you come in, especially as a freshman, and work on something like ethics reform, it’s not necessarily a way to endear yourself to some of the veteran members of the Illinois General Assembly. And working on issues like racial profiling was contentious, but Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics.” Cynthia Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said of Barack, “He wasn’t a maverick. There were other legislators I would turn to if I just wanted to make a lot

of noise. That wasn’t his style.” 15 Barack worked on such issues as repro- ductive rights, gun control, and banning assault weapons. While in Springfield, Barack worked long hours and was dedicated to the issues of the day. In his first two years, he introduced or was a chief cosponsor of 56 bills, with 14 becoming law. He worked on campaign finance and ethics legislation, measures that compensated crime victims for certain property losses, and on a law that prevented early probation for gun-running felons. In his third year, he was even more successful in getting bills introduced and passed. He cosponsored nearly 60 bills, 11

of which became law. 16 A major reason for his success in the senate was directly related to his ability to reach across political party lines. Over the years in the state senate, Barack persuaded Republicans to go along with many initiatives and was able to garner across-the-aisle support. Barack said of his time in the state senate that the most important thing he could do in Springfield was to bring all sides of an issue together, get it on the table, and make sure everyone feels they are being listened to. This ability,

he said, was something he learned back in the days of community organiz- ing, when he learned how to get things done. 17 Like many of his colleagues, he also played golf, pickup basketball, and made the rounds at the parties. He was also known to join the weekly poker game with legislators and lobbyists. One of his colleagues, State Senator Larry Walsh, described him as competitive yet careful, and always hard to read. Walsh said, “One night, we were playing . . . and I had a real good hand and Barack beat me out with another one. I slammed down

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my cards and said, ‘Doggone it, Barack, if you were a little more liberal in your card playing and a little more conservative in your politics, you and

I would get along a lot better.’ ” 18 Very aggressive when he first came to the senate, despite the Demo- crats being in the minority, Barack asked for any difficult assignments. He favored ambitious changes in campaign law, including limits on contribu- tions. According to the director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Barack’s ability to work with people of the opposite party and his definite ideas about what he thought should be in campaign finance reform were impressive. He noted that Barack was always willing to recognize he wasn’t going to get everything he wanted. 19

After five years, Barack worked on what became his signature effort: a push for mandatory taping of interrogations and confessions. Opposed by prosecutors, police organizations, and the governor, Barack believed that no innocent defendant should be on death row, and no guilty defendant should be set free. The bill that Barack worked on was unanimously ap- proved by the Illinois Senate. When the governor reversed his position on the issue, Illinois became the first state to require taping by statute. Carl Hawkinson, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, stated that Barack would always take suggestions when they were logical and was willing to listen to other points of view. Offering his opinions in

a professional and lawyer-trained way, the chairman noted that, when Barack spoke on the floor of the senate, he spoke with and from convic- tion, adding that everyone knew that, regardless of whether they agreed with him. 20

Barack took his legislative responsibilities seriously; however, he knew that his family always came first. In 1999, Barack missed an important vote relating to gun control. At the time, he and his family were visiting his grandmother in Hawaii for the Christmas holiday, and his daughter, Malia, then 18 months old, was sick and unable to fly. The vote was narrowly defeated, and, while his vote wouldn’t have made a difference in the bill’s demise, the missed vote was a factor when Barack ran against Bobby Rush,

a popular Chicago Democrat, for the U.S. House of Representatives.

ILLINOIS STATE SENATOR