Rising Star

by David Garrow

  On April 15 Barack and Michelle owed the IRS a whopping $18,401 in additional 1998 taxes. Michelle had earned more than $66,000 from the U of C, and Barack $56,000 from the law school plus another $48,000 from the Senate. His law firm income was barely $10,000, but his board service brought in an additional $9,500 from Joyce and $6,000 from Woods, even though neither foundation yet realized that once Barack had become a legislator two years earlier, a little-known Illinois law adopted in late 1995 with no visible news coverage prohibited him from accepting such honoraria. The Obamas’ charitable giving was only $1,100, with $400 going to Trinity United Church of Christ and $100 to the Illinois Coalition Against Handgun Violence. With Malia’s babysitter Glorina Casabal costing well over $1,000 a month, family finances remained tight and Barack later said “there were a lot of stresses and strains” between him and Michelle during that time.63

  That same day, Barack introduced Laura Mullens, the law student who had piqued his interest in discriminatory credit scoring, to the House Financial Institutions Committee. Laura realized that committee members were not expecting a white female with a Georgia accent when Barack said that one of his constituents would testify in support of his Check Acceptance Firm Act. Dan Shomon recalled that Laura impressed the committee, and SB 1055 was unanimously approved. Thanks to Barack, Laura’s trip to Springfield was “one of the most educational experiences I had in law school.”

  As April turned to May, Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller wrote that in Springfield “the feeling of bipartisanship and good will towards the governor is still very high,” mainly because “Illinois once again has a governor who actually likes people and is willing to rub elbows with them.” Barack and his three white Democratic colleagues—Terry Link, Larry Walsh, and Denny Jacobs—had renewed the Wednesday-night poker games, and by early 1999 Terry had refinished the basement of his Springfield house, hosting the games there rather than in his kitchen. Lobbyists Mike Lieteau, Phil Lackman, and Dave Manning remained mainstays, as did Republican senator Tommy Walsh, and in early 1999 the group added another regular, Walsh’s good friend and fellow Republican senator Dave Luechtefeld, from Okawville in far southern Illinois.

  Often called “coach” for his years leading high school basketball teams, Luechtefeld had noticed Barack right from the start. “He certainly caught your attention when he spoke,” and it was obvious “he was looking for something bigger than this from day one,” Luechtefeld explained. He sensed the discomfort many urban Democrats felt toward Barack, perhaps because of the “little bit of cockiness, little bit of arrogance” that Barack’s self-confident manner exuded. Barack was very respectful toward Luechtefeld, who was more than two decades older, but at his first poker game, Luechtefeld was surprised when Barack “pulls out a cigarette” because he did not expect Barack to be a smoker. Barack “loved to play poker, there was no question about that,” and with a growing roster of regulars that soon included Illinois Manufacturers’ Association lobbyist Boro Reljic plus occasional participants like Democratic senator Lou Viverito, the Wednesday-night gatherings sometimes split into two adjoining tables. The players also came up with an unofficial code name—a “committee meeting”—in a less-than-successful attempt to shield their pastime from knowledgeable secretaries. With the new players, the monetary stakes crept upward, and after losing one painful hand to tightfisted Barack, Larry Walsh remembered complaining, “Doggone it, Barack, if you were a little more liberal in your card playing and a little more conservative in your politics, we’d get along a lot better!”

  In late April Emil Jones officially named Barack as the Democratic spokesman on the Public Health and Welfare Committee, replacing seventy-five-year-old Margaret Smith. At a late April town hall meeting in Woodlawn, Barack and Barbara Flynn Currie were confronted with dozens of people unhappy with their support of a bill that would limit local school councils’ power to fire principals. Barack refused to back down, saying principals who clearly were doing a good job deserved protection, and he advised people to get “involved in larger organizations that have a reach beyond this district.”

  On May 4, Governor Ryan spoke to assembled legislators, proposing a $12 billion public works construction program he called Illinois FIRST—Fund for Infrastructure, Roads, Schools & Transit. The savvy Ryan had gotten the Four Tops, even Pate Philip, to agree to the scope of the program, if not its financing, prior to his announcement, and Ryan later claimed that when he first detailed its pork barrel potential to the quartet, “the drool was running out of their mouths.” Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller swooned over Ryan’s “elegantly written” speech, in which the governor mentioned by name forty-nine legislators whose districts the program would benefit. Barack was busy supporting a House bill to allow pharmacists to substitute generic for more expensive brand-name drugs if the generics had been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Barack told his colleagues, “I actually spoke to FDA officials in Washington to try to get this clarified,” and they had confirmed that “the generics are equivalent of the brand-name drugs,” as did “physicians that I talked to independently.” That effort won overwhelming Senate passage of HB 2256, and that same day the House unanimously approved a somewhat weakened version of Barack’s Check Acceptance Firm Act, with SB 1055 then returning to the Senate.

  Despite its unanimous approval by both houses of the legislature, within days Barack’s Check Acceptance Firm Act was fatally derailed. “I’ve got bad news for you,” former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer Matt Jones told Dan Shomon one morning. “‘Your bill is dead.’ ‘Why?’” Dan asked Matt, who was now a contract lobbyist. “One of the credit scoring companies just hired me. You’re done.” Dan gave Barack the bad news—“it’s dead”—and Barack told Laura what had happened: “the TeleCheck people woke up and killed it in the Senate.” Her experience with SB 1055 had been educational indeed, or at least educational in the ways of Springfield. “Lobbyists spend most of their time killing bills,” Capitol Fax had noted a few weeks earlier, and in early May, Miller observed that spring 1999 “will likely be remembered as the session held for the benefit of rich white guys.” That was “not to say that all sessions don’t usually benefit rich white guys,” Miller quickly added, “but this one just seems to be more blatant.”64

  George Ryan’s long immersion in the ways of Springfield was unintentionally highlighted when he named four lobbyists to a seven-member ethics panel he had created following his inauguration. “I was surprised that the governor wasn’t more mindful of the possible perceptions that were raised by putting lobbyists on the commission,” Barack told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I think it would be advisable to put people on the commission that are not perceived to have major interests in Springfield.” Barack was not much happier with Ryan’s huge Illinois FIRST initiative. It would fund “one of my top priorities,” the remodeling of South Lake Shore Drive, the handsome divided highway that linked Hyde Park to downtown Chicago, plus it would pay for the reconstruction of nine miles of the Dan Ryan Expressway south of Bronzeville. But it would be “funded by regressive taxes that will hurt families,” because most of the money would come from doubling Illinois’s annual vehicle registration fee from $48 to $96 and tripling the title fee for vehicle purchases from $13 to $50. “Regardless of your income or whether you own a Lexus or a Ford Escort, vehicle owners will pay the same fee,” exacerbating a state taxation system that was already “one of the most regressive in the United States.”

  In early May, Senate president Pate Philip made news regarding a bill that would increase criminal penalties for anyone who assaulted a sports referee or umpire. Barack’s Republican Health Committee colleague Dave Syverson was presenting the bill when Rickey Hendon asked whether it would cover professional wrestling, where referees were often fair game. Syverson responded, “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but when it’s part of the act, that would not be included.” Hendon replied, “I’m going to let some of my professional wrestling friends know that you think it�
�s just an act, and perhaps when they’re here they can lobby you personally and see if you can get out of a choke hold!” Judiciary chairman Carl Hawkinson spoke in support of the bill, but then Philip objected, declaring that “every once in a while, that referee or that umpire ought to get popped, and you ought to pop ’em good!” Then the vote was called, with only thirty-three senators—including Barack—backing the bill and twenty-two bipartisan opponents voting either no or present.

  Reporters and columnists jumped all over Philip’s remark, but an unrepentant Philip told the Chicago Tribune, “They make more mistakes and everybody gets so mad at them, it isn’t even funny. . . . I just say maybe they deserve a pop once in a while.” Tribune columnist Bob Greene labeled Philip “stunningly moronic,” and the suburban Daily Herald, calling Philip “more inflammatory than usual,” editorialized that the state Senate’s “level of sportsmanship . . . sometimes sinks pretty low.” In contrast, Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller defended Philip, arguing that “he embodies older, white, suburban, working class values” and that “his critics ought to take a breath and relax.” Even twenty years later Philip continued to stand by his call to arms, saying he was a longtime Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Chicago Bears season ticket holder. “Everybody around me bitches about the referees, the calls, like you cannot believe!” Barack had little personal interaction with Philip, but the Senate president reminded him of someone he had known well, as he explained on the floor one day to Republican friend Dave Sullivan. “One of the strangest things for me serving here in the Illinois Senate is that Pate Philip looks just like my grandfather!”65

  Much Senate attention focused on a pair of protectionist bills aimed at boosting the businesses of liquor distributor William Wirtz and Pepsi bottler Harry Crisp, a pal of Philip’s, with Barack voting against both. He also voted against an open-ended deregulation measure sought by Illinois-based banks. “We should have a sense of what exactly this body, this chamber is giving up in terms of its regulatory powers, and I have not heard yet a clear understanding of what exactly those powers are. What legislative regulations and powers do we have that we’re potentially sacrificing as a consequence of this bill?” Giving banks carte blanche is “not the way to go,” Barack warned, but only moderate suburban Republican Christine Radogno joined him in voting no.

  Barack also took to the floor to advocate passage of a House bill requiring that at least two-thirds of the child support payments received by the state go to children, because at present “of the $88 million that we collect in child support, we only distribute $8 million of that to the children who are supposed to be the recipients.” Some Republicans thought that too much, and the bill passed with only thirty-four yes votes. The next day Barack became even more peeved when a House bill extending the duration of one particular enterprise zone in Metro East so as to benefit a specific company was called for passage. Taking “a business-by-business approach to the extension of the enterprise zones,” in place of his earlier bill that Republicans had killed, would be “highly subject to politics,” Barack warned, but even he voted yes.

  As the final week of the spring session approached, attention turned to the $65 million that each caucus would receive for so-called member initiatives as part of Governor Ryan’s huge Illinois FIRST proposal. One evening Barack joined conservative Republican senator Laura Kent Donahue on Bruce DuMont’s Illinois Lawmakers telecast, explaining that he believed Illinois had done “as good a job as any state” in aiding welfare recipients’ transition to work. Barack expressed guarded support for Illinois FIRST, but emphasized that programs that “benefit the most vulnerable in the state” must not suffer as a result. When DuMont asked if the twenty-year, $50-million-per-year commitment that FIRST entailed might prove problematic during an economic downtown, Donahue agreed, saying it was “too big, too fast.” Barack expected to support it but was unhappy about how Illinois was “putting a little bit too much of a bite on working-class families” while the Revenue Committee on which he sat had “voted on about $200 million worth of tax breaks” this year alone.

  When Chicago Republican senator Walter Dudycz the next day offered a resolution instructing Illinois’s public universities to comply with FOIA requests for their admissions data submitted by a group well known for opposing affirmative action, Senate floor debate dissolved into angry discord. Rickey Hendon and the normally mild-mannered James Clayborne challenged the requester’s intent, with Hendon telling Dudycz “don’t bring racism and racist legislation to the floor of the Senate.” Dudycz was in no way racially insensitive, as even Hendon knew, but Barack felt compelled to speak too, stressing that the requesting organization, the Center for Equal Opportunity, “is systematically attempting to dismantle affirmative action in public universities all across the country.” Barack readily volunteered that “we know, by definition, that affirmative action means that the minority students may have lower test scores than the white students. . . . That’s the essence of affirmative action.” But if and when the scores were publicized, then “immediately, essentially every minority student on that campus” would be “under suspicion as being incompetent, unqualified,” and “under a cloud that they could not erase.” Barack acknowledged that “reasonable minds can differ on the issue of affirmative action” because it was “a difficult, complicated issue,” but he urged senators to vote against the resolution, and Dudycz angrily withdrew it.66

  When the final week began on May 24, the Senate spent all of Monday evening debating a bill to allow riverboat gambling to expand into northwestern Cook County, to permit nonstop gambling on all ten Illinois riverboats, and to underwrite the reopening of a racetrack owned by a well-connected millionaire. The bill had passed the House three days earlier, and veteran senators said they had never seen such intense lobbying on any bill. Emil Jones, who was otherwise pro-gambling, was against a bill he thought offered nothing at all to the parts of Chicagoland that were most in need of economic development. Pate Philip insistently championed the measure, and early in the debate, Barack took the floor. “I am not philosophically very keen on gaming as an economic development strategy,” because “oftentimes it tends to be regressive” with regard to the people from whom it sucks money. In addition, “what does disturb me deeply” is how “we are giving away, at least initially, $65 million in tax breaks to people who I think we would all acknowledge are pretty fortunate and doing pretty well.” In stark contrast, “during this session, sitting in Public Health and Welfare . . . I watched us, again and again, reject and refuse the requests of people in deep need in this state—personal attendants who are caring for the disabled and are making the minimum wage, and we told them ‘You know what? We can’t give a raise. We’ve got a tight budget here.’ We had bills that would raise Medicaid eligibility for low-income senior citizens. Said we couldn’t do it. Sixteen million dollars. Couldn’t find it in the budget. We had a bill that would have shifted the median income of eligibility for subsidized day care. Cost, ten million dollars. We couldn’t do it. And many of us sitting here today said to people in desperate need that we couldn’t provide those kinds of tax breaks or we couldn’t provide those kinds of subsidies because we are fiscally responsible. And yet, here we are today.” Barack’s disgust was audible. “I’ve been observing this process for the last three days of people trading their votes, making deals” on the gambling bill, “and I think we should be ashamed of ourselves after saying ‘No’ to that many people who need some real help in this state, that we are actually willing to go ahead and vote for a piece of legislation that helps people who don’t need it.”

  Later in the debate, Emil Jones warned that the bill’s inclusion of an explicit, 20 percent minority set-aside provision would open the measure to easy legal attack because Barack had advised him that the inclusion of a specific quota, rather than a more diffuse goal, was clearly unconstitutional. When the vote was called, with Barack voting no, Philip appeared to have defeated Jones by a one-vote margin, 30–29, with Phil
ip’s good friend Ed Petka, who firmly opposed gambling, voting yes. Then anyone who had ever doubted Emil Jones’s political savvy quickly learned a lesson. Jones requested a verification of the thirty affirmative votes, in which the presence of every member was to be confirmed. But pro-gaming Democrat Evelyn Bowles had left the chamber, and the result was a 29–29 tie, with the measure’s proponents now forced to negotiate with Jones to see what further division of the pie could change his no to a yes.

  Eleven Democrats, including some who were not enthused with Jones, had voted with Philip and against their own leader, but the backers of a boat for northwest Cook County now deployed county board president John Stroger’s top two campaign contributors, Tony Rezko and Al Johnson, as well-chosen emissaries to Emil Jones. Barack told the Chicago Defender’s Chinta Strausberg that the bill would “do very little to develop the South Side, West Side or south suburbs,” and that “if we’re going to have a boat it should be in an economically distressed area” of Cook County, not in prosperous northwestern Rosemont, “where very few blacks live.” Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller believed the vote had become “a very personal fight” between Jones and Philip, grounded in part by the perception that Philip “doesn’t treat Jones as an equal,” but Jones’s race-conscious approach to the proposal’s shortcomings did not sit well with some white Democrats.