Denver, Colorado — When state Senator Barack Obama
cosponsored legislation creating and increasing subsidies for low-income housing developers in Illinois, and wrote letters to get $14 million specifically for two of them (one was Tony Rezko), his official acts benefited several friends and donors in that industry. A similar thing happened when Obama
earmarked $200,000 for Jesse Jackson’s investment fund in Chicago and $225,000 for Father Michael Pfleger’s neighborhood ministry.
Those are just a few among dozens of examples of how, when Senator Obama governs, his friends do well. Such arrangements give the lie to Obama’s self-projected image as a reformer who wants to change government and restore America’s faith in politics. But they do not make him especially awful — such arrangements are typical among politicians in both parties. Earmarks and narrowly crafted bills go one way, campaign contributions go the other. Old friends who deliver votes are rewarded with taxpayers’ money. The “right” former staffers get the six-figure lobbying jobs, and the “right” companies get the contracts.
That’s Washington, and it’s definitely
Chicago, the city being celebrated tonight at the Democratic convention as various Windy City speakers take the stage. It is the “old politics” that Obama consistently denounces, and which he has consistently practiced throughout his career.
But has Obama ever gone further than that by performing official acts that benefited
himself? Has he done favors for people paying him money for his own family’s personal use? The public seems largely unaware of two instances in Obama’s career where that appearance is unmistakable. Both incidents were reported in major newspapers, but have been ignored by the New York and Washington press, which set the tone for our national political coverage.
Michelle Obama, tonight’s big speaker, received a large payday in 2005 from the University of Chicago Medical Center — a promotion with a $200,000 annual raise. It came just after her husband became a U.S. senator. The following year, Senator Obama inserted a $1 million earmark for the hospital. Given that money is fungible, taxpayers are underwriting Mrs. Obama’s raise through 2010, thanks to her husband’s earmark (she is currently on leave from that job).
When the
Chicago Tribune asked about this appearance of impropriety, Senator Obama remarked that he should have given the earmark to another senator instead of handling it himself. “When it comes to earmarks, because of those concerns, it’s probably something that should have been passed on to [Illinois senior Senator] Dick Durbin,” he said.
So the “new politics” way to deal with the appearance of impropriety is to hide it — in this case by having someone else insert your earmark for you.
When Obama served in the Illinois senate, the “new politics” prescribed a similar means for dealing with the appearance of impropriety: Bury blatant conflicts of interest in your disclosure forms amid a long list that no one will bother to parse carefully. That’s what Obama did when he used his public office to help get money for a lucrative client in his private law practice — a man whose corporation had just paid him $112,000 over 14 months. The
Los Angeles Times reported this explosive story in April, but it was given surprisingly little play. The Obama’s campaign’s explanation of what happened, contained in the news story, is not terribly reassuring.
Robert Blackwell Jr., a Chicago entrepreneur and CEO of two corporations, is a major Obama donor and fundraiser. He contributed $14,000 to Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign and $4,600 to his presidential run this year. He has even given $2,100 to Obama’s 2010 Senate reelection account. Blackwell has also . The employees at his two companies — Electronic Knowledge Interchange and Killerspin — have contributed at least $18,000 to Obama’s campaigns. They had good reasons to give.
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