August 4, 1961August 4, 1 - Present
Birth Place : Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. (born August 4, 1961) is the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois. He has been distinguished as the only African American now serving in the U.S. Senate. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still serving in the Illinois State Senate. In November 2004, he was elected to the United States Senate by a landslide victory in a year of Republican gains. During his first year as a U.S. Senator, Obama said he would not run for the presidency in 2008, but in a recent television interview he stated: "I have thought about the possibility" of becoming a presidential candidate.
Early life and career
See also: Dreams from My Father
Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya, and Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student. In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes a nearly race-blind early childhood. He writes: "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."
When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced and his father returned to Kenya. His mother then married an Indonesian foreign student, moving to Jakarta with Obama when he was six years old. Four years later, Obama returned to Hawaii under the care of his maternal grandparents. He was enrolled in the fifth grade at Punahou School, where he graduated from high school in 1979.
Of his years in Hawaii, Obama has written, "The irony is that my decision to work in politics, and to pursue such a career in a big Mainland city, in some sense grows out of my Hawaiian upbringing, and the ideal that Hawaii still represents in my mind."
After high school, Obama studied for two years at Occidental College, before transferring to Columbia College at Columbia University. There he majored in political science, with a specialization in international relations. Upon graduation in 1983, Obama worked for one year at Business International Corporation before moving to Chicago and taking a job with a non-profit organization helping local churches organize job training programs for residents of poor neighborhoods.
Obama then left Chicago for three years to study at Harvard Law School. He was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, obtaining his Juris Doctor degree, magna cum laude, in 1991. On returning to Chicago, Obama supported a voter registration drive, then worked for the civil rights law firm Miner, Barnhill and Galland, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.
State legislature
In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park, in Chicago. In January 2003, Democrats regained control of the chamber, and Sen. Obama was named chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
Obama helped to author an Earned Income Tax Credit for the state that provided benefits to the working poor. He also worked for legislation that would cover residents who could not afford health insurance, and helped pass bills to increase funding for AIDS prevention and care programs.
In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush. Rush, a former Black Panther and community activist, charged that Obama hadn't "been around the first congressional district long enough to really see what's going on". Rush received 61% of the vote, while Obama received 30%.
After the loss, Obama rededicated his efforts to the state Senate. He authored a death penalty reform law under the guidance of former U.S. Senator Paul Simon. He also pushed through legislation that would force insurance companies to cover routine mammograms.
Reviewing Obama's career in the Illinois State Senate, commentators noted his ability to work effectively with both Democrats and Republicans, and to build coalitions. In his subsequent campaign for the U.S. Senate, Obama won the endorsement of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, whose officials cited his "longtime support of gun control measures and his willingness to negotiate compromises", this despite his support for some bills that the police union had opposed.
Senate career
Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005. He then ranked 99th out of 100 Senators in terms of official seniority, ranking ahead of only new fellow freshman Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado. During his first months in office Obama drew praise for his perceived attempts to avoid the limelight and focus on being a senator when the Washington Post article reported an anecdote of Obama refusing an upgrade to first-class on a flight home.
Obama's public profile continued to climb throughout 2005. TIME magazine named Obama one of "the world's most influential people," listing him among twenty "Leaders and Revolutionaries" for his high-profile entrance to federal politics and his popularity within the Democratic Party. An October 2005 article in the British journal New Statesman listed Obama as one of "10 people who could change the world.
Education
In April 2005, Obama sponsored his first Senate bill, the "Higher Education Opportunity through Pell Grant Expansion Act", S. 697. Entered in fulfillment of a campaign promise to help needy students pay their college tuitions, the bill proposed increasing the maximum amount of Pell Grant awards to $5,100. Provision for Pell Grant awards was later incorporated into the "Deficit Reduction Act", S. 1932, signed by President George W. Bush on February 8, 2006.
Immigration
Obama was a co-sponsor of the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act", S. 1033, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on May 12, 2005. Obama also supported a later revision, the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act", S. 2611, passed by the Senate on May 25, 2006. He offered three amendments that were included in the bill passed by the Senate: (1) to protect American workers against unfair job competition from guest workers; (2) require employer verification of their employees' legal immigration status through improved verification systems; and (3) fund improvements in FBI background checks of immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship.
In December 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed a parallel bill, H.R. 4437, which provides for enhanced border security measures, but does not address the broader immigration reform proposals contained in the Senate's bill. Congressional inaction on this legislation has become a heated issue in the lead-up to the 2006 midterm elections, with representatives of both major parties holding the other party responsible for the stalemate.
Transparency
Obama joined with Senators Coburn (R-OK), Carper (D-DE), and McCain (R-AZ) in sponsoring the "Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act", S. 2590, to provide citizens with a website, managed by the Office of Management and Budget, listing all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward, and providing breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract. President George W. Bush signed the bill, also referred to as the "Coburn-Obama Transparency Act", into law on September 26, 2006.
Congressional delegations
Russia and Eastern Europe
During the August recess of 2005, Obama traveled with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The latest in Lugar's series of Nunn-Lugar visits to the region, the trip focused on strategies to control the world's supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a strategic first defense against the threat of future terrorist attacks.[39]
Lugar and Obama inspected a Nunn-Lugar program supported nuclear warhead destruction facility at Saratov, in southern European Russia.[40] In a diplomatic incident the Moscow Times reported as reminiscent of the Cold War, the delegation's departure from an airport in the city of Perm, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, was delayed for three hours when Russian guards sought unsuccessfully to search their plane.[41] In Ukraine, Lugar and Obama toured a disease control and prevention facility and witnessed the signing of a bilateral pact to secure biological pathogens and combat risks of infectious disease outbreaks from natural causes or bioterrorism.
Middle East
In January 2006 Obama joined Senators Bayh (D-IN), Bond (R-MO), and Congressman Ford (D-TN) for meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq. After the visits, Obama split off from the others for more meetings in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. While in Israel, Obama met with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. A planned meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had been cancelled due to his recent stroke.
Obama also met with a group of Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election. ABC News 7 (Chicago) reported Obama telling the students that "the US will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel", and that he had conveyed the same message in his meeting with Palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas. After the election, Obama said: "My hope is that as a consequence of now being responsible for electricity and picking up garbage and basic services to the Palestinian people, that they recognize it's time to moderate their stance." Referring to Obama's comment, editorial columnist George F. Will coined the phrase "Garbage Collection Theory of History.
Articles source : WikiPedia
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