http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/23/224059/069
Barack Obama frequently cites his impressive record as an Illinois state legislator as an indicator of his experience in running for President.
Turns out, according to former Chicago reporter Todd Spivak, all of his legislative accomplishments were in his final 7th year and were handed to him by his mentor, Ill. State Senate President Emil Jones.
The Illinois legislature was dominated by Republicans for 26 years. These included Obam's first 6 years in the state Senate. Not surprisingly, says Spivak, he had no legislative achievements during these years.
Jones was instrumental in changing the legislative makeup, and after he did, he became Senate President. Here's the rest of the story: [More...]
Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's kingmaker. Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio program. I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:
"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"
"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"
"Barack Obama."
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. "Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.
"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."
During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law - including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.
It was a stunning achievement that started him on the path of national politics - and he couldn't have done it without Jones. Before Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he was virtually unknown even in his own state. Polls showed fewer than 20 percent of Illinois voters had ever heard of Barack Obama.
Jones further helped raise Obama's profile by having him craft legislation addressing the day-to-day tragedies that dominated local news headlines. For instance. Obama sponsored a bill banning the use of the diet supplement ephedra, which killed a Northwestern University football player, and another one preventing the use of pepper spray or pyrotechnics in nightclubs in the wake of the deaths of 21 people during a stampede at a Chicago nightclub. Both stories had received national attention and extensive local coverage.
I spoke to Jones earlier this week and he confirmed his conversation with Kelley, adding that he gave Obama the legislation because he believed in Obama's ability to negotiate with Democrats and Republicans on divisive issues.
So how has Obama repaid Jones? Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones's Senate district.
Shortly after Jones became Senate president, I remember asking his view on pork-barrel spending. I'll never forget what he said:"Some call it pork; I call it steak."
Did Obama work hard? Of course he did. But did he get credit for legislation his fellow Senators had worked years on because Emil Jones designated him the heavy-hitter for the final stretch?
If so, and if Spivak's account is correct, it was the same politics as usual that Obama now so eschews that catapulted him to prominence. And the earmarks as payback is worth a second look. And not just those to Jones' district, but also to Chicago State University, a long-time Jones' favorite.
From the New York Times:
In addition to the University of Illinois, Mr. Obama secured several million dollars for a project at Chicago State University. Emil Jones Jr., the president of the Illinois State Senate and an early and powerful political benefactor of Mr. Obama's, has been a dogged champion of Chicago State, and one of Senator Obama's closest friends. A Chicago businessman, James Reynolds, sits on its board.
But Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said these requests had all been considered worthwhile by the senator's staff, and that Mr. Obama never discussed any of them with Mr. Crown, Mr. Jones or Mr. Reynolds.
They may have all been worthwhile, but would they have been included in Obama's legislation if they didn't help his friends and mentors?
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In 1985, former Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg (who also was implicated in the Nyack robbery) and Linda Evans were apprehended while transporting 740 pounds of explosives which they both acknowledged were slated for use in additional bombings. Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in prison, Evans 40; President Bill Clinton pardoned both women in January 2001.
And then to find out President Bill Clinton also granted clemency to 16 imprisoned members of FALN. He claimed that the FALN prisoners were being unfairly punished because of "guilt by association,".
Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the midst of her state-wide "listening tour" in anticipation of her run for the U.S. Senate in New York, a state which included 1.3 million Hispanics. Three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- Luis V. Gutierrez (D., Ill.), Jose E. Serrano, (D., N.Y.) and Nydia M. Velazquez, (D., N.Y.) -- along with local Hispanic politicians and leftist human-rights advocates, had been agitating for years on behalf of the FALN cases directly to the White House and first lady.
Initial reports stated that Mrs. Clinton supported the clemencies, but when public reaction went negative she changed course, issuing a short statement three weeks after the clemencies were announced. The prisoners' delay in refusing to renounce violence "speaks volumes," she said.
The Clintons were caught in an awkward predicament of their own making. The president had ignored federal guidelines for commutation of sentences, including the most fundamental: The prisoners hadn't actually asked for clemency.
To push the deal through, signed statements renouncing violence and expressing remorse were required by the Justice Department. The FALN prisoners, surely relishing the embarrassment and discomfiture they were causing the president and his wife, had previously declined to accept these conditions. Committed and unrepentant militants who did not accept the authority of the United States, they refused to apologize for activities they were proud of in order to obtain a clemency they never requested.
The first lady called her failure to consult the Puerto Rican political establishment before assessing the entire issue a mistake "that will never happen again" -- even as the cops who had been maimed and disfigured by FALN operations continued to be ignored. Tom and Joe Connor, two brothers who were little boys when their 33-year-old father, Frank, was killed in the Fraunces Tavern attack, were dumbstruck to learn that White House staffers referred to the FALN militants as "political prisoners" and were planning a meeting with their children to humanize their plight.
Members of Congress viewed the clemencies as a dangerous abuse of presidential power that could not go unchallenged.
Yeah yeah, I know the above story pales in comparison to the one you related but, still a worthwhile story to remember.
So some state senators with more seniority couldn't get their own bills passed and saw something in him that they themselves felt they could't accomplish on their own.
300 million in pork, sounds pretty low if you ask me. Do you have the stats on other legislation passed during the same time and how much was attached to that? Am I the only one who noticed that it was not until the 2007 State of the Union Speech ( which was the first one where Reps. were now in the minority in both houses) that W. decided to speak out against pork?
Let's face it the Government has operated this way for a VERY long time. One person comes up with a concept and writes it up. As soon as the next person gets wind of it they start adding on and taking it away. There have been a lot of very good bills passed that would not have passed had certain riders, ammendments and pork not been added into it. I don't like that fact, but I do recognize it.
By the way can you tell me what exactly that 300 million in pork/steak went to??? It could have gone to some very good, worthwhile and successful programs, or it could have gone to new chandeliers in the senate bathrooms. Not like Chicago hasn't been a mecca for corruption in politics for a long time now as are many many other areas, especially the current oval office.
I personally don't have any problem in supporting a candidate who was able to accomplish what more senior state senators were not able to do. And it isn't like several other presidents had less governmental experience than he does. Including Eisenhower and Lincoln. The more I hear him speak, or read "truthful" accouns about him, the more I like him. He has held up very well under the pressures, and with grace. He speaks very well and ...presidentially (haven't seen that in the last 7 years). He is inspiring and well has the guts to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done.
Yep the more this goes on the more I like the idea of President Obama.
If any of you are concerned about the illegal immigration issue, you need to check his record on that. He wants to give 28 million illegals citizenship.
Get another job so you can pay for the "free" medical coverage and the social services they will get. BTW, illegals have recieved $397,454,199,867.00 in social services since 1996.
Vote him in, get another job to support the illegals.
New Obama Scandal: Top Obama Adviser Could Face Legal Disbarment
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/26/new-obama-scandal-top-obama-adviser-could-face-legal-disbarment/