Barack Obama

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Barack Obama

Official portrait, 2012

44th President of the United States

In office

January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017

Vice President Joe Biden

Preceded by George W. Bush

Succeeded by Donald Trump

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

August 4, 1961 (age 61)

Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.

Political party Democratic

Michelle Robinson
Spouse
 

(m. 1992)

Malia
Children
Sasha

Parents Barack Obama Sr.

Ann Dunham

Relatives Family of Barack Obama

Residence Kalorama (Washington, D.C.)

Education Punahou School

Alma mater Occidental College

Columbia University (BA)

Harvard University (JD)

Occupation Politician

lawyer

author

Awards List of honors and awards

Signature

Website Official website

Obama Foundation

White House Archives

This article is part of

a series about
Barack Obama

 Political positions
 Electoral history

 Early life and career

 Family
 Public image
 Honors

Pre-presidency

 Illinois State Senator

 2004 DNC keynote address
 U.S. Senator from Illinois 
o sponsored bills

44th President of the United States

 Presidency 
o timeline
  Transition
 Inaugurations 
o first
o second

Policies

 Economy
 Energy
 Foreign policy 
o Europe
o East Asia
o Middle East
o South Asia
o Obama Doctrine
o foreign trips

 Pardons
 Social
 Space

Appointments

 Cabinet
 Judiciary 
o Sotomayor
o Kagan
o Garland
o Supreme Court candidates

First term

 First 100 days

 Recovery Act
 Russia nuclear treaty
 Affordable Care Act
 Dodd–Frank
 Iraq withdrawal
 Killing of Osama bin Laden
 Libya intervention
 Afghanistan withdrawal
 Benghazi attack
  Timeline 
o '09
o '10
o '11
o '12

Second term

 Anti-ISIL campaign 
o Iraq
o Syria

 Iran nuclear deal

 Cuban thaw
 Sanctions against Russia
 Selma 50th anniversary speech
 Obergefell v. Hodges
 Paris Agreement
 Timeline 
o '13
o '14
o '15
o '16–'17

show
Presidential campaigns

Post-presidency

 Planned presidential library

 Obama Foundation
 One America Appeal

 Dreams from My Father

 The Audacity of Hope
 A Promised Land
 Nobel Peace Prize

Others

 Thanks, Obama
  Obama tan suit controversy

 v
 t
 e

Barack Hussein Obama II (/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/ ( listen) bə-RAHK hoo-SAYN oh-

BAH-mə;  born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the
[1]

44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic

Party, he was the first African-American president of the United States.  Obama
[2]

previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois

state senator from 1997 to 2004.
Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in
1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard
Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After
graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional
law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Turning to elective
politics, he represented the 13th district in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004, when
he ran for the U.S. Senate. Obama received national attention in 2004 with his March
Senate primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote
address, and his landslide November election to the Senate. In 2008, after a close
primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for
president. Obama was elected over Republican nominee John McCain in the general
election and was inaugurated alongside his running mate Joe Biden, on January 20,
2009. Nine months later, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a
decision that drew a mixture of praise and criticism.
Obama signed many landmark bills into law during his first two years in office. The main
reforms include: the Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as "the ACA" or
"Obamacare", the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and
the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act and Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job
Creation Act served as economic stimuli amidst the Great Recession. After a lengthy
debate over the national debt limit, he signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 and
the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. In foreign policy, he increased U.S. troop
levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the United States–Russia New
START treaty, and ended military involvement in the Iraq War. In 2011, Obama ordered
the drone-strike killing in Yemen of al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki, who was an
American citizen. He ordered military involvement in Libya in order to implement UN
Security Council Resolution 1973, contributing to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
He also ordered the counterterrorism raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
 After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama
was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013. During this term, he condemned
the 2013 Snowden leaks as unpatriotic, but called for more restrictions on the National
Security Agency (NSA) to address privacy issues. Obama also promoted inclusion
for LGBT Americans. His administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to
strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional (United States v.
Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges); same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide in
2015 after the Court ruled so in Obergefell. He advocated for gun control in response to
the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, indicating support for a ban on assault
weapons, and issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning global warming and
immigration. In foreign policy, he ordered military interventions in Iraq and Syria in
response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, promoted
discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, drew
down U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2016, initiated sanctions against Russia following
its annexation of Crimea and again after interference in the 2016 U.S. elections,
brokered the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran, and normalized
U.S. relations with Cuba. Obama nominated three justices to the Supreme Court: Sonia
Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were confirmed as justices, while Merrick
Garland was denied hearings or a vote from the Republican-majority Senate. Obama
left office on January 20, 2017, and continues to reside in Washington, D.C.
During Obama's terms as president, the United States' reputation abroad, as well as the
American economy, significantly improved. Scholars and historians rank him among the
upper to mid tier of American presidents. Since leaving office, Obama has remained
active in Democratic politics, including campaigning for candidates in the 2018 midterm
elections, appearing at the 2020 Democratic National Convention and campaigning for
Biden during the 2020 presidential election. Outside of politics, Obama has published
three bestselling books: Dreams from My Father (1995), The Audacity of Hope (2006)
and A Promised Land (2020).

Contents

 1Early life and career

o 1.1Education
 1.1.1College and research jobs
 1.1.2Community organizer and Harvard Law School
 1.1.3University of Chicago Law School
o 1.2Family and personal life
o 1.3Religious views
 2Legal career
o 2.1Civil Rights attorney
 3Legislative career
o 3.1Illinois Senate (1997–2004)
o 3.22004 U.S. Senate campaign
o 3.3U.S. Senate (2005–2008)
 4Presidential campaigns
o 4.12008
 o 4.22012
 5Presidency (2009–2017)
o 5.1First 100 days
o 5.2Domestic policy
 5.2.1LGBT rights and same-sex marriage
 5.2.2Economic policy
 5.2.3Environmental policy
 5.2.4Health care reform
o 5.3Foreign policy
 5.3.1War in Iraq
 5.3.2Afghanistan war and Pakistan
 5.3.3Venezuela
 5.3.4Relations with Cuba
 5.3.5Israel
 5.3.6Libya
 5.3.7Syrian Civil War
 5.3.8Iran nuclear talks
 5.3.9Africa
 5.3.10Hiroshima speech
 5.3.11Russia
o 5.4Cultural and political image
 6Post-presidency (2017–present)
 7Legacy
o 7.1Presidential library
 8Bibliography
o 8.1Books
o 8.2Audiobooks
o 8.3Articles
 9See also
o 9.1Politics
o 9.2Other
o 9.3Lists
 10References
o 10.1Works cited
 11Further reading
 12External links
o 12.1Official
o 12.2Other

Early life and career

Main article: Early life and career of Barack Obama
Stanley Armour Dunham, Ann Dunham, Maya Soetoro and Barack Obama, (L to R) mid-1970s in Honolulu

Obama was born on August 4, 1961,  at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and
[3]

Children in Honolulu, Hawaii.  He is the only president born outside the contiguous 48

[4][5][6]

states.  He was born to an American mother and a Kenyan father. His mother, Ann
[7]

Dunham (1942–1995), was born in Wichita, Kansas and was mostly of English descent,

though in 2007 it was discovered her great-great-grandfather Falmouth Kearney
emigrated from the village of Moneygall, Ireland to the US in 1850.  In July [8]

2012, [Link] found a strong likelihood that Dunham was descended from John

Punch, an enslaved African man who lived in the Colony of Virginia during the
seventeenth century.  Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr. (1934–1982),  was a
[9][10] [11][12]

married  Luo Kenyan from Nyang'oma Kogelo.  Obama's parents met in 1960 in

[13][14][15] [13][16]

a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a

foreign student on a scholarship.  The couple married in Wailuku, Hawaii, on February
[17][18]

2, 1961, six months before Obama was born. [19][20]

In late August 1961, a few weeks after he was born, Barack and his mother moved to
the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During that time,
Barack's father completed his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii, graduating
in June 1962. He left to attend graduate school on a scholarship at Harvard University,
where he earned an M.A. in economics. Obama's parents divorced in March 1964.
 Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964, where he married for a third time and worked
[21]

for the Kenyan government as the Senior Economic Analyst in the Ministry of Finance.
 He visited his son in Hawaii only once, at Christmas 1971,  before he was killed in an
[22] [23]

automobile accident in 1982, when Obama was 21 years old.  Recalling his early [24]

childhood, Obama said: "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."  He [18]

described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial
heritage. [25]

In 1963, Dunham met Lolo Soetoro at the University of Hawaii; he was

an Indonesian East–West Center graduate student in geography. The couple married
on Molokai on March 15, 1965.  After two one-year extensions of his J-1 visa, Lolo
[26]

returned to Indonesia in 1966. His wife and stepson followed sixteen months later in
1967. The family initially lived in the Menteng Dalam neighborhood in the Tebet district
of South Jakarta. From 1970, they lived in a wealthier neighborhood in
the Menteng district of Central Jakarta. [27]

Education
Barack Obama's school record in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School. Obama was enrolled as "Barry Soetoro"
(no. 1), and was wrongly recorded as an Indonesian citizen (no. 3) and a Muslim (no. 4). [28]

At the age of six, Obama and his mother had moved to Indonesia to join his stepfather.
From age six to ten, he attended local Indonesian-language schools: Sekolah Dasar
Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School) for two
years and Sekolah Dasar Negeri Menteng 01 (State Elementary School Menteng 01) for
one and a half years, supplemented by English-language Calvert
School homeschooling by his mother.  As a result of his four years in Jakarta, he was
[29][30]

able to speak Indonesian fluently as a child.  During his time in Indonesia, Obama's

[31][32][33]

stepfather taught him to be resilient and gave him "a pretty hardheaded assessment of
how the world works." [34]

In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal

grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. He attended Punahou School—a
private college preparatory school—with the aid of a scholarship from fifth grade until he
graduated from high school in 1979.  In his youth, Obama went by the nickname
[35]

"Barry".  Obama lived with his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro, in Hawaii for three
[36]

years from 1972 to 1975 while his mother was a graduate student in anthropology at
the University of Hawaii.  Obama chose to stay in Hawaii when his mother and half-
[37]

sister returned to Indonesia in 1975, so his mother could begin anthropology field work.
 His mother spent most of the next two decades in Indonesia, divorcing Lolo in 1980
[38]

and earning a PhD degree in 1992, before dying in 1995 in Hawaii following

unsuccessful treatment for ovarian and uterine cancer. [39]

Of 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."  Obama has [40]

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."  Obama was also a member of [41]

the "choom gang", a self-named group of friends who spent time together and
occasionally smoked marijuana. [42][43]

College and research jobs

After graduating from high school in 1979, Obama moved to Los Angeles to
attend Occidental College on a full scholarship. In February 1981, Obama made his first
public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South
Africa in response to that nation's policy of apartheid.  In mid-1981, Obama traveled to [44]

Indonesia to visit his mother and half-sister Maya, and visited the families of college
friends in Pakistan for three weeks.  Later in 1981, he transferred to Columbia
[44]

University in New York City as a junior, where he majored in political science with a

specialty in international relations  and in English literature  and lived off-campus on
[45] [46]

West 109th Street.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983 and a
[47]

3.7 GPA. After graduating, Obama worked for about a year at the Business International
Corporation, where he was a financial researcher and writer,  then as a project [48][49]

coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group on the City College of
New York campus for three months in 1985. [50][51][52]

Community organizer and Harvard Law School

Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama moved from New York to Chicago
when he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project, 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.  He helped set up a job training program, a [51][53]

college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld

Gardens.  Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel
[54]

Foundation, a community organizing institute.  In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time [55]

in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of
his paternal relatives for the first time. [56][57]

External video

 Derrick Bell threatens to leave Harvard, April 24, 1990, 11:34, Boston

TV Digital Archive[58] Student Barack Obama introduces Professor Derrick

Bell starting at 6:25.

Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law,

Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988, living in nearby Somerville,
Massachusetts.  He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of
[59]

his first year,  president of the journal in his second year,  and research assistant to
[60] [54][61]

the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe while at Harvard for two years.  During his [62]

summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law

firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.  After graduating with [63]

a Juris Doctor magna cum laude  from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.

[64]

 Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained

[60]

national media attention  and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book
[54][61]

about race relations,  which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was
[65]

published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father. [65]

University of Chicago Law School

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.  He then [65][66]

taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, first
as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004. [67]

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. [68]

Family and personal life

Main article: Family of Barack Obama
In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family: "It's like a
little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've
got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."  Obama has a half-sister with whom he
[69]

was raised (Maya Soetoro-Ng) and seven other half-siblings from his Kenyan father's
family—six of them living.  Obama's mother was survived by her Kansas-born
[70]

mother, Madelyn Dunham,  until her death on November 2, 2008,  two days before his
[71] [72]

election to the presidency. Obama also has roots in Ireland; he met with his Irish
cousins in Moneygall in May 2011.  In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his
[73]

mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives
of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the American
Civil War. He also shares distant ancestors in common with George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney, among others. [74][75][76]

Obama lived with anthropologist Sheila Miyoshi Jager while he was a community

organizer in Chicago in the 1980s.  He proposed to her twice, but both Jager and her
[77]

parents turned him down.  The relationship was not made public until May 2017,
[77][78]

several months after his presidency had ended. [78]

Obama poses in the Green Room of the White House with wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, 2009

In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer

associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.  Robinson was assigned for three
[79]

months as Obama's adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group social
functions but declined his initial requests to date.  They began dating later that
[80]

summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.  After [81]

suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their

children.  The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998,  followed by a
[82] [83]

second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.  The Obama daughters attended

[84]

the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. When they moved to Washington, D.C.,

in January 2009, the girls started at the Sidwell Friends School.  The Obamas had [85]

two Portuguese Water Dogs; the first, a male named Bo, was a gift from Senator Ted
Kennedy.  In 2013, Bo was joined by Sunny, a female.  Bo died of cancer on May 8,
[86] [87]

2021. [88]

Obama playing in a pickup game on the White House basketball court, 2009

Obama is a supporter of the Chicago White Sox, and he threw out the first pitch at
the 2005 ALCS when he was still a senator.  In 2009, he threw out the ceremonial first
[89]

pitch at the All-Star Game while wearing a White Sox jacket.  He is also primarily [90]

a Chicago Bears football fan in the NFL, but in his childhood and adolescence was a fan
of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and rooted for them ahead of their victory in Super Bowl
XLIII 12 days after he took office as president.  In 2011, Obama invited the 1985
[91]

Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited the White House after
their Super Bowl win in 1986 due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.  He plays [92]

basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team,

 and he is left-handed.
[93] [94]

In 2005, the Obama family applied the proceeds of a book deal and moved from a Hyde
Park, Chicago condominium to a $1.6 million house (equivalent to $2.2 million in 2021)
in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago.  The purchase of an adjacent lot—and sale of part
[95]

of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor and friend Tony Rezko—

attracted media attention because of Rezko's subsequent indictment and conviction on
political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama. [96]

In December 2007, Money Magazine estimated Obama's net worth at $1.3 million

(equivalent to $1.7 million in 2021).  Their 2009 tax return showed a household income
[97]

of $5.5 million—up from about $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005—mostly

from sales of his books.  On his 2010 income of $1.7 million, he gave 14 percent to
[98][99]

non-profit organizations, including $131,000 to Fisher House Foundation, a charity

assisting wounded veterans' families, allowing them to reside near where the veteran is
receiving medical treatments.  Per his 2012 financial disclosure, Obama may be
[100][101]

worth as much as $10 million. [102]

Religious views
Obama is a Protestant Christian whose religious views developed in his adult life.  He [103]

wrote in The Audacity of Hope that he "was not raised in a religious household." He

described his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as being detached from religion,
yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person ... I have ever known", and "a
lonely witness for secular humanism." He described his father as a "confirmed atheist"
by the time his parents met, and his stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not
particularly useful." Obama explained how, through working with black churches as
a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the
African-American religious tradition to spur social change." [104]

The Obamas worship at African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., January 2013

In January 2008, Obama told Christianity Today: "I am a Christian, and I am a devout

Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe
that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life."  On September [105]

27, 2010, Obama released a statement commenting on his religious views, saying:
I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't—frankly, they weren't folks who went to
church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she
didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was
because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would
want to lead—being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat
me. [106][107]

Obama met Trinity United Church of Christ pastor Jeremiah Wright in October 1987 and

became a member of Trinity in 1992.  During Obama's first presidential campaign in
[108]

May 2008, he resigned from Trinity after some of Wright's statements were criticized.
 Since moving to Washington, D.C., in 2009, the Obama family has attended several
[109]

Protestant churches, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John's Episcopal Church,

as well as Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, but the members of the family do not
attend church on a regular basis. [110][111][112]

In 2016, he said that he gets inspiration from a few items that remind him "of all the
different people I've met along the way", adding: "I carry these around all the time. I'm
not that superstitious, so it's not like I think I necessarily have to have them on me at all
times." The items, "a whole bowl full", include rosary beads given to him by Pope
Francis, a figurine of the Hindu deity Hanuman, a Coptic cross from Ethiopia, a
small Buddha statue given by a monk, and a metal poker chip that used to be the lucky
charm of a motorcyclist in Iowa. [113][114]

Legal career
Civil Rights attorney
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. [failed

 In 1994, he was listed as one of the lawyers in Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed.
verification]

Sav. Bank, 94 C 4094 (N.D. Ill.).  This class action lawsuit was filed in 1994 with Selma
[115]

Buycks-Roberson as lead plaintiff and alleged that Citibank Federal Savings Bank had
engaged in practices forbidden under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair
Housing Act.  The case was settled out of court.  Final judgment was issued on May
[116] [117]

13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay attorney fees. [118]

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.  He served on the board of[51]

directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding

president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.  Obama's law [51]

license became inactive in 2007. [119][120]

Legislative career
Illinois Senate (1997–2004)
Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama

State Senator Obama and others celebrate the naming of a street in Chicago after ShoreBank co-founder Milton Davis in
1998

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding Democratic State

Senator Alice Palmer 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.  Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that
[121]
reformed ethics and health care laws.  He sponsored a law that increased tax
[122][123]

credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased

subsidies for childcare.  In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on
[124]

Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday

loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting
home foreclosures. [125][126]

He was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in
the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002.  In 2000, he lost
[127][128]

a Democratic primary race for Illinois's 1st congressional district in the United States

House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to
one.[129]

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.  He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to
[130]

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.  During his 2004 general election campaign for the U.S. Senate,
[124][131][132][133]

police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police
organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.  Obama resigned from the Illinois
[134]

Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate. [135]

2004 U.S. Senate campaign