Press Release |
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VOTE FOR OBAMA |
We are living in the best of times, where all things are possible. |
We can be "Heroes." |
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES From 1985 to 1988, Obama served as director for the Developing Communities Project, a church-based social action group in Chicago. Together with a coalition of ministers, Obama set out to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued by crime and high unemployment. Obama also helped form a tenants’ rights group in the housing projects that successfully organized to force the city and federal governments to clear asbestos from pipes in more than 1,200 apartments in the Ida B. Wells and Altgeld-Murray developments. Finally, he also worked with the Calumet Community Religious Conference, a group that used charitable grants to assess skills of unemployed workers and help them find jobs. |
HARVARD LAW From 1988 to 1991, Obama attended Harvard Law. He was elected by his peers to become the first African-American president of the 102-year-old Harvard Law Review, where he was responsible for choosing and editing articles for one of the nation’s most prestigious legal journals. Constitutional law expert Larry Tribe called Obama “among the most intellectually creative and energetic students I can recall.” He graduated magna cum laude in 1991 |
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING: PROJECT VOTE In 1992, Obama headed Project Vote, a voter registration effort in Chicago for Bill Clinton’s first election. Project Vote was responsible for signing up many of the 150,000 new African-American voters, the highest number registered in a single local effort. Crain’s Chicago Business, naming him one of “40 under 40” outstanding young leaders in the city of Chicago, said “Obama galvanized Chicago’s political community, as no seasoned politico had before.” Alderman Sam Burrell said, “Under Barack’s leadership, we had the most successful, cost-effective and orderly voter registration drive I’ve ever been involved with.” The Chicago Tribune also named him as one of “25 Chicagoans on the road to making a difference." |
DAVIS MINER BARNHILL AND GALLAND / UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO After law school, Obama joined the Chicago-based law firm of Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, where he was named a partner in 1996. Obama specialized in civil rights and voting rights litigation, employment law, and the representation of not-for-profit and community development corporations in urban redevelopment activities. Obama’s clients included private organizations that built affordable housing for low-income people, a successful example of using government incentives and support for private industry. In 1994, Obama received the Monarch Award for Outstanding Public Service. |
From 1993 to 2004, Obama was a Senior Lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, focusing on equal protection and due process.
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UNITED STATES SENATE Since he was elected U.S. Senator in 2004, Obama has helped pass major measures that combat the international trafficking of nuclear weapons, promote the use of alternative fuels, and open up the budget process to greater public scrutiny. As a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made fact-finding trips to see the Iraq war first-hand, promote arms control with Russia, and better understand Africa’s struggles with AIDS, corruption, and genocide |
• Homeland Security. Obama worked with Senator Dick Lugar to expand a successful program that has destroyed Soviet nuclear warheads to help stop the smuggling of nuclear material and helps keep conventional weapons out of terrorists’ hands. Martin Schramm of Scripps Howard wrote, “This is a homeland-security sort of bill that America urgently needs to become law.” The initiative was signed into law in 2007 |
• Making Government Transparent. Every American has the right to know how the government spends their tax dollars, but for too long that information has been largely hidden from public view. That’s whyObama and Senator Tom Coburn teamed up to pass a law that lifted the veil of secrecy in Washington bycreating a Google-like search engine at www.usaspending.gov that allows regular people to track approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks and loans online. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “It would enable the public to see where federal money goes and how it is spent. It’s a brilliant idea." |
• Ethics Reform. Obama introduced and helped pass the strongest ethics reform since Watergate. It includes a full ban on gifts and meals from lobbyists, an end to subsidized travel for lawmakers on corporate jets, full disclosure on lobbyists’ campaign contributions, and restrictions to close the revolving door that enables former congressmen to become high-paid lobbyists. The Washington Post wrote in an editorial, “The final package is the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet. . . . Mr. Reid, along with Sens. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), deserves credit for assembling and passing this package." |
• Alternative Energy. Obama has worked on numerous efforts in the Senate to increase access and use to alternative and bio-fuels. The law advocated by Obama and Senator Jim Talent will make gas stations eligible for generous tax credits for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. The tax credit covers 30 percent of the costs of switching one or more traditional petroleum pumps to E85. Obama’s legislation will help create the infrastructure to support more flexible-fuel vehicles (cars that run on both E85 and regular gasoline). Senator Obama also sponsored an amendment that became law providing $40 million for commercialization of a combined flexible fuel vehicle/hybrid car within five years. Senator Obama and Sen. Grassley also launched a Government Accountability Office investigation of large oil companies to see if they are fighting the installation of alternative fuel pumps. That investigation will be completed in April 2007. |
• Veterans Benefits. After news reports that veterans in Illinois were receiving less in disability benefits than those nearly anywhere else in the country, Senator Obama led efforts to correct the problems that created these disparities. As a result, the VA opened an investigation into the matter, agreed to hire more disabilityclaims specialists for the Chicago regional office, and agreed to re-examine the claims of Illinois veterans who felt they had been treated unfairly. The Chicago Sun-Times wrote in an editorial, “Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Dick Durbin have been in the forefront, once this problem was exposed by the Sun-Times…What better advocates could vets hope for than Durbin and Obama? Dick Durbin is the Democratic whip, an energetic senator who has done much for the state. Barack Obama is a rising star whose future is limitless… It’s about fairness to 1 million Illinois vets, fairness which they have earned and is long overdue.
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ILLINOIS STATE SENATE In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate, where he served for eight years. In 1997, Obama was awarded the Best Freshman Legislator Award from Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization for his work in bringing Illinois into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (Motor-Voter), and in 1998, he received Outstanding Legislator Awards from Campaign for Better Health Care and the Illinois Primary Health Care Association. |
• Campaign Finance. In 1998, Obama joined forces with former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon to pass the toughest campaign-finance law in Illinois history. The legislation banned the personal use of campaign money byIllinois legislators and bans most gifts from lobbyists. Before the law was passed, Illinois was ranked worst among 50 states by Common Cause for its campaign finance regulations. The bill made it illegal to hold fundraisers near the capital or take contributions on state property. In 2003, Obama was chief cosponsor and passed the Whistleblower Act, which prohibited any employer from preventing whistleblowing or retaliating against employees who do “blow the whistle." |
• Welfare Reform. Obama sponsored Illinois’ welfare-reform law that combined work requirements and time limits with significant investments in child care, job training and transportation. As a result, thousands ofIllinoisans have gained the dignity of a job, and Illinois leads the nation in the biggest reduction in the welfare caseload. But he also worked to soften its blow, ensuring that work requirements for recipients were coupled with increased spending on child care, job training and transportation, and sponsored a companion bill that called for Illinois to share data with researchers so they could study the law’s effects. |
• Expanding Health Insurance. In 2003, Obama passed legislation to expand and make permanent Kidcare, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, extending health care coverage to 20,000 additional children. It also expanded FamilyCare, a program providing health insurance to uninsured parents whose children are insured under Medicaid or KidCare, to an additional 65,000 Illinois working parents in the first year and 300,000 parents over three years. |
• Death Penalty Reform. After 13 death row inmates in Illinois were found innocent, Obama broke through political gridlock to enact serious death penalty reform. Obama brought prosecutors and the police to the table, getting them to agree to require that police record all phases of the interrogation of homicide suspects. Law enforcement agreed such a tape would help the prosecution's chances when confessions are genuine, while reducing coerced and false confessions. |
• Tax Relief for Working Families. Obama successfully sponsored an Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families in 2000 and successfully sponsored measure to make the credit permanent in 2003. The AP wrote, “The new law, which offers about $105 million in tax breaks over the next three years, gives a state income tax credit equal to 5 percent of a similar federal tax credit. For the average working familymaking less than $30,580, that amounts to about $55 a year, or 15 cents a day. The maximum credit forfamilies with two or more children is $191 a year." |
• Racial Profiling. Obama was the chief sponsor for racial profiling legislation that required Illinois law enforcement to record the race, age, and gender of all drivers they stop for traffic violations, to be analyzed for evidence of racial profiling and then sent to the Governor. The Chicago Defender wrote in an editorial, “Barack Obama (D-Chicago) led the fight in Springfield for passage of the legislation, which among other things will identify arrests and stops of minority citizens in mostly white neighborhoods.” |
Paid for by Obama for America |