Barack Obama (D- Illinois)
(Award will be accepted in absentia)
Barack Obama has dedicated his life to public service as a
community organizer, civil rights attorney, and leader in the Illinois state
Senate. Obama now continues his fight for working families following his recent
election to the United States Senate.
Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Senator Obama is focused
on promoting economic growth and bringing good paying jobs to Illinois. Obama
serves on the important Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees
legislation and funding for the environment and public works projects throughout
the country, including the national transportation bill. He also serves on the
Veterans’ Affairs Committee where he is focused on investigating the disability
pay discrepancies that have left thousands of Illinois veterans without the
benefits they earned. Senator Obama will also serve on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
During his seven years in the Illinois state Senate, Obama
worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead
by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three
years provided over $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state. Obama
also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number
of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama enlisted the support
of law enforcement officials to draft legislation requiring the videotaping
of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.
Obama is especially proud of being a husband and father of
two daughters, Malia, 6 and Sasha, 3. Obama and his wife, Michelle, married
in 1992 and live on Chicago ’s South Side where they attend Trinity United
Church of Christ.
Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961, in Hawaii to Barack
Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983,
and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve
living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment.
In 1991, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African
American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
