senate floor.
After five years of working together—even sponsoring some bills together—Hendon was still needling Obama about his blackness.
“Hey, Barack,” he’d taunt, “you figure out if you’re black or white yet?”
Obama tried to brush it off. Once, in a black caucus meeting, Hendon told him, “You have to stay black all the time. You have to be black on all issues.”
“This is not a black or white issue,” Obama responded tersely.
Obama had nominated Senator Kimberly Lightford, a young woman from the western suburbs, as chairman of the black caucus. They were allies. After Lightford’s first race, Obama wrote her a $500 check to cover campaign debts. Lightford and Emil Jones tried to keep the peace between Obama and Hendon, but there were days when Obama didn’t show up for meetings because he didn’t feel like being hassled.
On the senate floor, Obama sat alongside three white Democrats from the Chicago area—Terry Link, Carol Ronen, and Lisa Madigan. Their arrangement was called Liberal Row, and it only deepened Hendon’s conviction that Obama’s true home was in the white progressive community.
On June 11, the senate voted on a proposal to close a Department of Children and Family Services office in Hendon’s district. Anguished that the state was snatching another social program from the impoverished West Side, Hendon stood up to speak. He delivered an emotional plea for the children of his neighborhood.
“It just bothers me that you’re cutting education to the core, you’re destroying lives of the—of the children of this state and nobody’s even paying no damn attention,” Hendon said. “It’s like you don’t even care. Well, I care. And it makes a difference what we do here in this chamber out there in the real world…stop cutting everything from the children of this state.”
When the roll was called, every Democrat voted to keep the office open—except the four liberals. Hendon was furious. He stalked down the Row, demanding answers at every desk. Madigan explained that she was running for attorney general and needed to appear tough on government spending. Link admitted he had voted with the rest of Liberal Row. Ronen apologized and asked for Hendon’s forgiveness. Then Hendon confronted Obama.
“Well, we have to be fiscally prudent,” Obama said.
“What that mean?” Hendon demanded.
“Tight economy,” Obama replied. “We need to watch our coffers.”
When the next round of budget cuts came up—including a million-dollar grant to the Chicago for Summer Youth jobs—Obama rose to speak. He acknowledged that budget cuts were necessary but chided the Republicans for portraying themselves as pork busters while keeping alive a $2 million program to train students in video production and $250,000 for suburban recreation.
“It is not true that somehow that side of the aisle has been purely above politics or pork or partisanship in this process,” Obama said. “In fact, I think when we start looking at the votes, we’ll—it’ll turn out that the governor’s office has its favorites, and it’s looking after the—its favorites. And that’s fair. That’s the nature of the political beast, but I don’t want the—the public to be fooled into thinking that somehow, you-all have a monopoly on responsible budgeting.”
That was too much sanctimony for Hendon to bear. Obama, he was sure, was building a record to present to white voters when he ran for higher office. He needed a few “fiscally conservative” votes, so he was selling out the poor folks on the West Side to secure his political future. Hendon pressed his light, demanding recognition from the chair.
“I just want to say to the last speaker, you got a lot of nerve to talk about being responsible and then you voted for closing the DCFS office on the West Side, when you wouldn’t have voted to close it on the South Side,” he raged. “So I apologize to my Republican friends about my bipartisanship comments, ’cause clearly there’s some Democrats on this side of the aisle that don’t care about the West Side either, especially the last speaker.”
Then Obama pressed his light. He apologized for the vote, but he also made it clear he didn’t take kindly to being called out in front of the entire senate.
“I understand Senator Hendon’s anger at—actually—the—I was not aware that I had voted no on that last—last piece of legislation. I would have the record record that I intended to vote yes. On the other hand, I would appreciate that next time my dear colleague Senator Hendon ask me about a vote before he names me on the floor.”
The words were acid with sarcasm and