Dale Bumpers
United States Senator from Arkansas
In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1999
Preceded by	William Fulbright
Succeeded by	Blanche L. Lincoln
38th Governor of Arkansas
In office January 12, 1971 – January 3, 1975
Lieutenant	Bob C. Riley
Preceded by	Winthrop Rockefeller
Succeeded by	Bob C. Riley as Acting Governor
Personal details
Born	Dale Leon Bumpers (1925-08-12) August 12, 1925 (age 86) Charleston, Arkansas
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Betty Flanagan Bumpers
Alma mater	University of Arkansas Northwestern University Law School
Religion	Methodist
Military service
Service/branch	United States Marine Corps[1]
Years of service	1943-1946

Dale Leon Bumpers (born August 12, 1925) is an American politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas from 1971 to 1975; and then in the United States Senate from 1975 until his retirement in January 1999. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Senator Bumpers is currently counsel at the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Arent Fox LLP, where his clients include Riceland Foods and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Biography[link]

Dale Bumpers was born in Charleston in Franklin County in west central Arkansas near Fort Smith. He attended public schools and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1943 to 1946 during World War II. Bumpers graduated from Northwestern University Law School in Evanston, Illinois, in 1951. From his time in Illinois, he became a great admirer of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Bumpers was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1952. He started practicing law in his hometown in that same year and served as Charleston city attorney from 1952 to 1970. He served as special justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1968.

Governor of Arkansas[link]

Bumpers was virtually unknown when he announced his campaign for governor in 1970. Despite his lack of name recognition, his oratorical skills, personal charm, and outsider image put him in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination with former Governor Orval Faubus. Two other serious candidates were Attorney General Joe Purcell of Benton in Saline County and the outgoing Speaker of the Arkansas House, Hayes McClerkin of Texarkana. Bumpers barely edged out Purcell for the runoff berth but then easily defeated Faubus. In the general election, he swamped the incumbent moderate Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. It was a Democratic year nationally, and the tide benefited Bumpers. Like Jimmy Carter of Georgia, Reubin O. Askew in Florida and John C. West of South Carolina, Bumpers was often described as a new kind of Southern Democrat who would bring reform to his state and the Democratic Party. His victory over Rockefeller ushered in a new era of youthful reform-minded governors, including two of his successors, David Pryor (later a three-term U. S. Senator) and future U.S. President Bill Clinton.

In the 1972 Democratic primary, Bumpers easily defeated two opponents, including the highly regarded State Senator Q. Byrum Hurst of Hot Springs. In the general election, he swamped the Republican Len E. Blaylock of Perry County even as Richard M. Nixon was handily winning Arkansas in the presidential race.

U.S. Senate elections[link]

Bumpers was elected to the United States Senate in 1974. He unseated the incumbent James William Fulbright in the Democratic primary by a wide margin and then overwhelmed the Republican lawyer and banker John Harris Jones (born 1922) of Pine Bluff. Jones had run earlier as a Democrat for the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 1956 against Representative William F. Norrell, in 1961 against Norrell's widow, Representative Catherine Dorris Norrell, and in 1966 for the open seat vacated by the resignation of Oren Harris, when he challenged fellow Democrat David Hampton Pryor of Camden and Republican A. Lynn Lowe of Texarkana.

In the 1974 Senate race, Jones accused Bumpers of excessive spending as governor, citing the construction of a $186 million state office complex. Bumpers not only ignored Jones but instead campaigned mostly for the young Democrat Bill Clinton, who failed in that heavily Democratic year to unseat Republican U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt in Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. Bumpers polled 461,056 votes (84.9 percent) to Jones's 82,026 (15.1) percent, the weakest Republican showing since the insurance executive Victor M. Wade of Batesville lost to Fulbright in 1944.

Time magazine wrote that "many to their sorrow have had trouble taking Bumpers seriously ... Dandy Dale, the man with one speech, a shoeshine, and a smile."^[2]

In 1980, Bumpers comfortably survived the Ronald W. Reagan victory in Arkansas by defeating a Democrat-turned-Republican, William "Bill" Clark. Bill Clinton, however, lost in the Reagan landslide, having been temporarily unseated by the Republican Frank D. White. In 1986, Bumpers defeated later U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson, the Republican nominee. In 1992, he defeated future Governor Mike Huckabee. In 1998, when Bumpers retired, the Democratic choice, Blanche Lambert Lincoln easily defeated the Republican Fay Boozman, a state senator who was later the Arkansas Department of Health director under Governor Huckabee.

Senate tenure[link]

Bumpers was elected to the Senate four times, beginning with his huge victory over Fulbright, the veteran chairman of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bumpers chaired the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship from 1987 until 1995, when the Republican Party took control of the Senate for a dozen years following the 1994 elections. Bumpers served as ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 1997 until his retirement. In the Senate, Bumpers was known for his oratorical skills and for his prodigious respect for the Constitution of the United States. Bumpers never supported any constitutional amendment.

Despite support from many colleagues, including ultimate 1988 Democratic candidate, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, Bumpers decided to not seek the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Initially named as one of Walter Mondale's top potential choices for his vice presidential running mate in '84, but he took his name out of the running early in the process. Bumpers stated as his main reason for not running, "a total disruption of the closeness my family has cherished." Many observers felt that Bumpers perhaps lacked the obsessive ambition required of a presidential candidate, especially one who would have started out the process with low name identification. Another factor often mentioned was Bumpers key vote in killing labor law reform in 1978, a vote that angered organized labor and had clearly not been forgotten by labor leaders nearly a decade later.^[3]

Bumpers, a self-declared close friend of President Clinton, gave an impassioned closing argument in defense of him during Clinton's impeachment trial.

Quotes from the closing argument of the White House presentation, January 21, 1999:^[4]

H. L. Mencken said one time, "When you hear somebody say, 'This is not about money' – it's about money." And when you hear somebody say, "This is not about sex" – it's about sex.

…

Nobody has suggested that Bill Clinton committed a political crime against the state. So, colleagues, if you honor the Constitution, you must look at the history of the Constitution and how we got to the impeachment clause. And if you do that and you do that honestly according to the oath you took, you cannot – you can censure Bill Clinton, you can hand him over to the prosecutor for him to be prosecuted, but you cannot convict him. And you cannot indulge yourselves the luxury or the right to ignore this history.

…

The American people are now and for some time have been asking to be allowed a good night's sleep. They're asking for an end to this nightmare. It is a legitimate request.

Honors[link]

In 1995, the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville founded the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences in his honor.^[5]

Causes[link]

Bumpers and his wife Betty were both known for their dedication to the cause of childhood immunization. The Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institutes of Health was established by former President Clinton to facilitate research in vaccine development.^[6]

Bumpers in fiction[link]

In the 1977 Jeffrey Archer's novel Shall We Tell the President?, Bumpers was elected as the Vice President of the United States in a ticket headed by Ted Kennedy during the 1984 election. In the next version of novel, Archer replaced Kennedy with the fictional character of Florentyna Kane, and Bumpers with the real-life Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	World War II portal
	United States Marine Corps portal

• List of Governors of Arkansas

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Complete text and audio and video of Dale Bumpers' Closing Defense Arguments at the Impeachment Trial of William Jefferson Clinton
• Dale Bumpers at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved April 22, 2007
• Defense Who's Who", Washington Post, January 19, 1999 [1]
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: Dale Leon Bumpers
• Transcript: Former Senator Dale Bumpers – Senate Floor January 21, 1999

Further reading[link]

• Bumpers, Dale. The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2003.
• Oral History Interview with Dale Bumpers from Oral Histories of the American South

v t e Governors of Arkansas Territorial (1819–1836) J. Miller Izard Crittenden Pope Fulton State (since 1836) J. Conway Yell Adams Drew Byrd Roane E. Conway Rector Flanagin Murphy Clayton Hadley Baxter Brooks* Baxter Garland W. Miller Churchill Berry Hughes Eagle Fishback Clarke Jones Davis Little Moore Pindall Martin Donaghey Robinson Oldham Futrell Hays Brough McRae Terral Martineau Parnell Futrell Bailey Adkins Laney McMath Cherry Faubus Rockefeller Bumpers Riley Pryor Purcell Clinton White Clinton Tucker Huckabee Beebe Italics indicates acting governor * Disputed; see Brooks-Baxter War

v t e United States Senators from Arkansas Class 2 Fulton Ashley Sebastian McDonald Clayton Garland Berry Davis Heiskell Kavanaugh Robinson Miller Spencer McClellan Hodges D. Pryor Hutchinson M. Pryor Class 3 Sevier Borland Johnson Mitchel Rice Dorsey Walker Jones Clarke Kirby T. Caraway H. Caraway Fulbright Bumpers Lincoln Boozman

v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Sparkman • Thye • Sparkman • Smathers • Bible • Nelson • Weicker • Bumpers • Bond • Kerry • Bond • Kerry • Snowe • Kerry • Landrieu

David Hampton Pryor
United States Senator from Arkansas
In office January 3, 1979 – January 3, 1997
Preceded by	Kaneaster Hodges, Jr.
Succeeded by	Tim Hutchinson
39th Governor of Arkansas
In office January 14, 1975 – January 3, 1979
Lieutenant	Joe Purcell
Preceded by	Bob C. Riley (acting)
Succeeded by	Joe Purcell (acting)
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas' 4th district
In office November 8, 1966 – January 3, 1973
Preceded by	Oren Harris
Succeeded by	Ray Thornton
Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging
In office January 3, 1989 – January 3, 1995
Preceded by	John Melcher
Succeeded by	William Cohen
Democratic Conference Secretary of the United States Senate
In office January 3, 1989 – January 3, 1995
Leader	George J. Mitchell
Preceded by	Daniel Inouye
Succeeded by	Barbara Mikulski
Chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party
In office September 2008 – February 2009
Preceded by	Bill Gwatney
Succeeded by	Todd Turner
Personal details
Born	(1934-08-29) August 29, 1934 (age 77) Camden, Arkansas
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Barbara Jean Lunsford
Alma mater	Henderson State University University of Arkansas
Profession	Attorney
Religion	Presbyterian

David Hampton Pryor (born August 29, 1934) is a former Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senator from the State of Arkansas. Pryor also served as 39th Governor of Arkansas from 1975 to 1979 and was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966. He served as the interim chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, following Bill Gwatney's assassination.

Life[link]

Pryor was born in Camden, the seat of Ouachita County in southern Arkansas, to William Edgar Pryor and the former Susan Newton.^[1] He attended public schools in Camden, attended Henderson State Teacher's College in Arkadelphia, and graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1957. Pryor was founder and publisher of the Ouachita Citizen from 1957 to 1960. He graduated from law school at the University of Arkansas in 1964 and was admitted to the bar that same year.

Political career[link]

His state House service preceded his tenure in the U.S. House.

He was elected to Congress in a special election to fill the unexpired term in the 89th Congress of fellow Democrat Oren Harris, whom U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed to a federal judgeship. At the same time, Pryor was elected to the 90th Congress for a full term. In the primary, Pryor defeated the Texarkana lawyer Richard S. Arnold, whom he later described as "a very, very close friend." Pryor thereafter defeated the Republican candidate, A. Lynn Lowe of Texarkana, by a comfortable margin. Lowe would subsequently become chairman of the fledgling Arkansas GOP. Pryor was reelected to the House twice and served from November 8, 1966 to January 3, 1973.

He was not a candidate for reelection in 1972. Instead he failed in a hard-fought campaign to wrest the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination from the popular conservative John L. McClellan, from Sheridan, Arkansas.

The race for Governor[link]

Pryor's next success came in the 1974 gubernatorial race. He was elected to succeed Dale Bumpers, who won the Senate seat long held by J. William Fulbright in the same year. Pryor first defeated former Governor Orval Faubus in the primary and then crushed the Republican nominee, Ken Coon, who would also later chair the Arkansas GOP. He was reelected in 1976 by a huge margin over the Republican Leon Griffith, a plumber from Pine Bluff, the seat of Jefferson County, who relocated to North Little Rock during the campaign. Before they could face Pryor, Coon and Griffith first had to defeat Joseph H. Weston of Cave City, editor of the controversial Sharp Citizen newspaper, whose work led to a change in Arkansas libel law.^[2]

Pryor's gubernatorial tenure extended from 1975 to January 3, 1979.

Lieutenant Governor Joe Purcell was an interim successor for six days as governor until the beginning of the term of the next governor-elect and future President Bill Clinton, who had served as Arkansas attorney general during Pryor's second two-year term.

Senate[link]

Pryor finally won McClellan's Senate seat in 1978. McClellan died in 1977, and Governor Pryor appointed a caretaker successor Kaneaster Hodges, Jr., who was prohibited by the Arkansas Constitution from running himself. Pryor won the Democratic senatorial nomination over then U.S. Representatives Jim Guy Tucker and Ray Thornton and then secured a lopsided general election victory in the fall over the liberal Republican James Kelly. He served three Senate terms. His closest contest was his 1984 reelection against the Republican U.S. Representative Edwin Bethune. Despite the presence of Ronald W. Reagan on the Republican ticket, Pryor still defeated Bethune, 502,3431 (57.3 percent) to 373,615 (42.7 percent). Pryor was unopposed in 1990, and he did not seek a fourth term in 1996. The seat instead went Republican for one term with the election of U.S. Representative Tim Hutchinson. Pryor hence retired from elected office in 1997.

Pryor served as chairman of the Committee on Aging. Pryor was known for his advocacy for the aged and for promoting taxpayer rights. During his tenure, he was secretary of the Democratic Conference, third in the Senate Democratic Leadership.

In 2000 Pryor became Director of the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He currently serves as dean of the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock. In June 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Pryor to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and in September of that year he was confirmed by the Senate for a six-year term. As he has done infrequently in the past, Pryor taught a political science course at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville during the Fall 2008 term.

Post-Senate career[link]

His son is current United States Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat who holds the same seat that his father vacated in 1997.

Pryor had quadruple bypass surgery performed by Dr. Tamim Antakli at UAMS on October 11, 2006. He had suffered a heart attack the previous day. His recovery was satisfactory and he was released from the hospital on October 17, 2006. [1]

Pryor briefly returned to politics, when he served as an interim chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party following the murder of Bill Gwatney, and plays an important role in Arkansas Democratic politics.^[3]

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: David Hampton Pryor
• Oral History Interview with David Pryor from Oral Histories of the American South

v t e Governors of Arkansas Territorial (1819–1836) J. Miller Izard Crittenden Pope Fulton State (since 1836) J. Conway Yell Adams Drew Byrd Roane E. Conway Rector Flanagin Murphy Clayton Hadley Baxter Brooks* Baxter Garland W. Miller Churchill Berry Hughes Eagle Fishback Clarke Jones Davis Little Moore Pindall Martin Donaghey Robinson Oldham Futrell Hays Brough McRae Terral Martineau Parnell Futrell Bailey Adkins Laney McMath Cherry Faubus Rockefeller Bumpers Riley Pryor Purcell Clinton White Clinton Tucker Huckabee Beebe Italics indicates acting governor * Disputed; see Brooks-Baxter War

v t e United States Senators from Arkansas Class 2 Fulton Ashley Sebastian McDonald Clayton Garland Berry Davis Heiskell Kavanaugh Robinson Miller Spencer McClellan Hodges D. Pryor Hutchinson M. Pryor Class 3 Sevier Borland Johnson Mitchel Rice Dorsey Walker Jones Clarke Kirby T. Caraway H. Caraway Fulbright Bumpers Lincoln Boozman

Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2009
Vice President	Joe Biden
Preceded by	George W. Bush
United States Senator from Illinois
In office January 3, 2005 – November 16, 2008
Preceded by	Peter Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	Roland Burris
Member of the Illinois Senate from the 13th District
In office January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004
Preceded by	Alice Palmer
Succeeded by	Kwame Raoul
Personal details
Born	Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-08-04) August 4, 1961 (age 50)[1] Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.[2]
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Michelle Robinson (1992–present)
Children	Malia (born 1998) Sasha (born 2001)
Residence	White House (Official) Chicago, Illinois (Private)
Alma mater	Occidental College Columbia University (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Community organizer Lawyer Constitutional law professor Author
Religion	Christianity[3]
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize
Signature
Website	barackobama.com

	This article is part of a series on Barack Obama
Background Illinois Senate US Senate Political positions Public image Family 2008 primaries Obama–Biden campaign Transition Inauguration Electoral history Presidency Timeline '09 '10 '11 '12 First 100 days Nobel Peace Prize Re-election campaign

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, and the Budget Control Act of 2011. In May 2012, he became the first sitting U.S. president to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage. In foreign policy, he ended the war in Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. involvement in the 2011 Libya military intervention, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

Early life and career[link]

Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children) in Honolulu, Hawaii,^[2][4][5] and is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.^[6] His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was of mostly English ancestry,^[7] along with Scottish, Irish, German, and Swiss.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian class at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship.^[13][14] The couple married on February 2, 1961,^[15] separated when Obama Sr. went to Harvard University on scholarship, and divorced in 1964.^[13] Obama Sr. remarried and returned to Kenya, visiting Barack in Hawaii only once, in 1971. He died in an automobile accident in 1982.^[16]

After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all Indonesian students studying abroad were recalled, and the family moved to the Menteng neighborhood of Jakarta.^[4][17] From ages six to ten, Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, including Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi School.^[18]

In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham, and with the aid of a scholarship attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.^[19] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972, remaining there until 1977 when she went back to Indonesia to work as an anthropological field worker. She finally returned to Hawaii in 1994 and lived there for one year before dying of ovarian cancer.^[15][20]

Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind."^[14] He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.^[21] Reflecting later on his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."^[22] Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."^[23] At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency, Obama described his high-school drug use as a great moral failure.^[24]

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to divest from South Africa in response to its policy of apartheid.^[25] In mid-1981, Obama traveled to Indonesia to visit his mother and sister Maya, and visited the families of college friends in Pakistan and India for three weeks.^[25] Later in 1981, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations^[26] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation,^[27] then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.^[28][29]

Chicago community organizer and Harvard Law School[link]

Two years after graduating, Obama was hired in Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.^[29][30] He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.^[31] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.^[32] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.^[33] He returned to Kenya in August 2006 for a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.^[34]

In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,^[35] and president of the journal in his second year.^[31][36] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as an associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.^[37] After graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude^[38] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.^[35] Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention^[31][36] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,^[39] which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.^[39]

University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorney[link]

In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.^[39][40] He then taught at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years—as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004—teaching constitutional law.^[41]

From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.^[42] In 1993, he joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004. His law license became inactive in 2002.^[43]

From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project; and of the Joyce Foundation.^[29] He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.^[29]

Legislative career: 1997–2008[link]

State Senator: 1997–2004[link]

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois's 13th District, which at that time spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park – Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.^[44] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws.^[45] He sponsored a law that increased tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.^[46] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.^[47]

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was reelected again in 2002.^[48] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.^[49]

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.^[50] He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.^[46][51] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.^[52] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.^[53]

U.S. Senate campaign[link]

County results of the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois. Counties in blue were won by Obama.

In May 2002, Obama commissioned a poll to assess his prospects in a 2004 U.S. Senate race; he created a campaign committee, began raising funds, and lined up political media consultant David Axelrod by August 2002. Obama formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.^[54]

Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[55] On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,^[56] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally,^[57] and spoke out against the war.^[58] He addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd that "it's not too late" to stop the war.^[59]

Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun to not participate in the election resulted in wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates.^[60] In the March 2004 primary election, Obama won in an unexpected landslide—which overnight made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party, started speculation about a presidential future, and led to the reissue of his memoir, Dreams from My Father.^[61] In July 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention,^[62] seen by 9.1 million viewers. His speech was well received and elevated his status within the Democratic Party.^[63]

Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.^[64] Six weeks later, Alan Keyes accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan.^[65] In the November 2004 general election, Obama won with 70 percent of the vote.^[66]

U.S. Senator: 2005–2008[link]

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005,^[67] becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.^[68] CQ Weekly characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007. Obama announced on November 13, 2008, that he would resign his Senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.^[69]

Legislation[link]

Obama cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.^[70] He introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons;^[71] and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending.^[72] On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.^[73]

Obama sponsored legislation that would have required nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks, but the bill failed to pass in the full Senate after being heavily modified in committee.^[74] Regarding tort reform, Obama voted for the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which grants immunity from civil liability to telecommunications companies complicit with NSA warrantless wiretapping operations.^[75]

Obama and U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) visit a Russian facility for dismantling mobile-missiles (August 2005).^[76]

In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.^[77] In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.^[78] Obama also introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections,^[79] and the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,^[80] neither of which was signed into law.

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to add safeguards for personality-disorder military discharges.^[81] This amendment passed the full Senate in the spring of 2008.^[82] He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, which has not passed committee; and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.^[83] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.^[84]

Committees[link]

Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006.^[85] In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.^[86] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.^[87] As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before Abbas became President of the Palestinian National Authority, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi in which he condemned corruption within the Kenyan government.^[88]

Presidential campaigns[link]

2008 presidential campaign[link]

Obama stands on stage with his wife and daughters just before announcing his presidential candidacy in Springfield, Illinois, February 10, 2007.

President George W. Bush meets with President-elect Obama in the Oval Office on November 10, 2008.

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.^[89][90] The choice of the announcement site was viewed as symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858.^[89][91] Obama emphasized issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care,^[92] in a campaign that projected themes of "hope" and "change".^[93]

A large number of candidates entered the Democratic Party presidential primaries. The field narrowed to a duel between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton after early contests, with the race remaining close throughout the primary process but with Obama gaining a steady lead in pledged delegates due to better long-range planning, superior fundraising, dominant organizing in caucus states, and better exploitation of delegate allocation rules.^[94] On June 7, 2008, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama.^[95]

On August 23, Obama announced his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.^[96] Biden was selected from a field speculated to include former Indiana Governor and Senator Evan Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.^[97] At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Hillary Clinton called for her supporters to endorse Obama, and she and Bill Clinton gave convention speeches in his support.^[98] Obama delivered his acceptance speech, not at the center where the Democratic National Convention was held, but at Invesco Field at Mile High to a crowd of over 75,000; the speech was viewed by over 38 million people worldwide.^[99][100]

During both the primary process and the general election, Obama's campaign set numerous fundraising records, particularly in the quantity of small donations.^[101] On June 19, 2008, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976.^[102]

McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate and the two engaged in three presidential debates in September and October 2008.^[103] On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.^[104] Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7 percent.^[105] He became the first African American to be elected president.^[106] Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park.^[107]

2012 presidential campaign[link]

On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission.^{[108][109][110]} As the incumbent president he ran almost unopposed in the Democratic Party presidential primaries,^[111] and on April 3, 2012, Obama had secured the 2778 convention delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.^[112]

Presidency[link]

First days[link]

Barack Obama takes the oath of office as President of the United States.

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President, and Joe Biden as Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.^[113] He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,^[114] but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds.^{[115][116][117]} Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records,^[118] and changed procedures to promote disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.^[119] He also reversed George W. Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments that allow abortions.^[120]

Domestic policy[link]

The first bill signed into law by Obama was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits.^[121] Five days later, he signed the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover an additional 4 million uninsured children.^[122] In March 2009, Obama reversed a Bush-era policy which had limited funding of embryonic stem cell research and pledged to develop "strict guidelines" on the research.^[123]

Barack Obama speaking at Joint session of Congress with Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on February 24, 2009

Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his Presidency. Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by Obama on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter, was confirmed on August 6, 2009,^[124] becoming the first Hispanic to be a Supreme Court Justice.^[125] Elena Kagan, nominated by Obama on May 10, 2010, to replace retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, was confirmed on August 5, 2010, bringing the number of women sitting simultaneously on the Court to three, for the first time in American history.^[126]

On September 30, 2009, the Obama administration proposed new regulations on power plants, factories and oil refineries in an attempt to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to curb global warming.^[127][128]

On October 8, 2009, Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.^[129][130]

On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, a reconciliation bill which ends the process of the federal government giving subsidies to private banks to give out federally insured loans, increases the Pell Grant scholarship award, and makes changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.^[131][132]

In a major space policy speech in April 2010, Obama announced a planned change in direction at NASA, the U.S. space agency. He ended plans for a return of human spaceflight to the moon and development of the Ares I rocket, Ares V rocket and Constellation program, in favor of funding Earth science projects, a new rocket type, and research and development for an eventual manned mission to Mars, and ongoing missions to the International Space Station.^[133]

On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, fulfilling a key promise made in the 2008 presidential campaign^[134][135] to end the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993 that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.^[136]

President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address focused on themes of education and innovation, stressing the importance of innovation economics to make the United States more competitive globally. He spoke of a five-year freeze in domestic spending, eliminating tax breaks for oil companies and reversing tax cuts for wealthy Americans, banning congressional earmarks, and reducing healthcare costs. He promised that the United States would have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015 and would be 80% reliant on "clean" electricity.^[137][138]

As a candidate for the Illinois state senate Obama had said in 1996 that he favored legalizing same-sex marriage;^[139] but by the time of his run for the U.S. senate in 2004, he said that while he supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners, for strategic reasons he opposed same-sex marriages.^[140] On May 9, 2012, shortly after the official launch of his campaign for re-election as president, Obama said his views had evolved, and he publicly affirmed his personal support for the legalization of same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so.^[141][142]