Obama in the Senate - Obama Presidency Oral History

After his victory in the general election in November 2004, Obama turned his attention to hiring staff for his new Senate office. Unusually for a Senator of his standing, Obama assembled a remarkably experienced and well-networked team. This was due, in part, to the electoral defeat of Tom Daschle—who had led the Senate Democratic caucus since 1995—in 2004. Many of Daschle’s former staffers moved to Obama’s office, including Pete Rouse, dubbed the “101st Senator” by the Washington media, who became Obama’s chief of staff. In addition to the aides and staffers in his office, Obama developed connections with a loose network of Washington policy experts and intellectuals who advised him informally about a wide range of issues related to his work. In project interviews, these staffers and experts describe the culture and orientation of the office, and remember their experiences advising Senator Obama. 

Obama sat on a range of Senate committees, including Foreign Relations; Veterans Affairs; and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. These committee memberships allowed Obama to build policy expertise, accumulate international experience and connections, and deepen relationships with Senate colleagues, including Republicans. Through his work on the Foreign Relations committee, Obama traveled with several congressional delegations, including to former Soviet republics and to inspect military bases and forward installations in the Middle East. On the committee Obama also formed a notable relationship with Richard Lugar (R-IN), and the pair collaborated on several legislative initiatives that aimed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons. Obama also sat on the subcommittee on African Affairs, and in 2006 embarked on a highly-publicized five-country tour of the continent. The trip included a stop in Kenya, where Obama received an especially-raucous welcome because of his familial connections to the country, and where he and his wife, Michelle Obama, were publicly tested for HIV to combat stigma against participation in HIV-related public health programs. 

Senator Obama reliably voted with the Democratic caucus, but he often pursued openings for bipartisan collaboration. With Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Senate’s most conservative lawmakers, for instance, Obama regularly worked on good government initiatives, and the pair successfully passed the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which mandated disclosures of all entities receiving federal funds, and created USAspending.gov to allow the public to scrutinize federal contracts. As it would remain throughout his presidency, immigration reform was a major issue in the 109th and 110th congresses. Though it never became law, in 2006 the Senate passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, to which Obama introduced three successful amendments, which would have, among other actions, created an electronic employment verification system to prevent the hiring or continuing employment of undocumented immigrants in the US. In their interviews, Obama’s Senate staffers speak widely about these and other of Obama’s legislative efforts. 

Early in his Senate tenure, Obama avoided national media coverage, and instead focused his energies on issues relevant to Illinois. Gradually, though, he began to engage with broader issues, and lean in to his national profile. A key event in this trajectory was Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in August 2005, causing devastating damage to the Gulf Coast, and especially New Orleans. The storm disproportionately impacted African American communities in New Orleans, and amid the fraught racial politics surrounding the Bush administration's bungled response to the crisis, Obama—the country's only African American Senator—made multiple visits to the region, including with Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, George H.W. Bush, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. The following autumn, Obama embarked on a highly-scrutinized nationwide book tour for The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. The tour allowed him to interact with Americans in states across the country, and explore the possibility of a presidential bid. In their interviews, Obama's advisors remember these entries into national politics, and discuss their connection to Obama's decision to campaign for the presidency in 2008.

The Obama Presidency Oral History’s coverage of Obama’s Senate career overlaps and intersects with several other topic areas in the collection, including Elections and Campaigns, Chicago, and Democrats.