Barack Obama
Senator, Illinois (D)

Barack Obama has dedicated his life to public service as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, and leader in the Illinois state Senate.

Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Senator Obama serves on the Environment and Public works committee, which oversee 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 the law enforcement officials to draft legislation requiring the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

Barack Obama was born August 4, 1961 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.

Obama is husband to Michelle and father of two daughters, Malia, 7, and Sasha, 4, and lives in Chicago.