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Obama: Chicago State: Jones
By AFP | May 14, 2008
The Illinois Review has a great piece on Barack Obama, Emil Jones and Chicago State University. Last year, AFP-Illinois made a stop at Chicago State as part of our Mystery Pork Tour:
Even as Senate President Emil Jones effectively killed legislation that would bring transparency to state spending, he participates in and benefits from the secretive practice of allocating state funds to pork-barrel projects. Records dating back nearly a decade raise questions over state funds steered toward Chicago State University (CSU) by Sen. Emil Jones and highlight the desperate need for transparency reforms.
Emil Jones’ position as head of the Illinois Senate has been a huge boon to Chicago state, whose funding has skyrocketed under Jones’ watch. Another beneficiary of Jones’ political power has been U.S. Senator Barack Obama. As reported by CNN earlier this Spring:
Obama wanted a promotion to the U.S. Senate, Jones provided critical support that gave the little-known legislator legitimacy, keeping him from being instantly trampled by the front-runners.
State Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, laughingly accuses Jones of a little “bill-jacking” — taking issues that other senators had been working on and giving them to Obama. Trotter, for instance, said he had hoped to be named chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee but the job went to Obama instead.
Now that Obama is in the position to steer federal money to Chicago State University, he is doing so. As reported by the Illinois Review:
Obama put in at least three earmark requests for CSU last year totaling $11 million. At least one of those earmarks was granted for 1.84 million federal dollars. He also pushed through a bill (H.R. 2669) that provides $15 million in funding to “predominantly black colleges,” including CSU.
These appear to be fairly ambitious gifts to a university with no distinction as a center of research and a lackluster reputation of educating students. They are also very generous requests for a university whose faculty has been very generous to Emil Jones, Obama’s “political godfather” (to use the parlance of CNN). As Americans for Prosperity pointed out last year, CSU has been a campaign cash cow for Jones.
“In total, CSU Foundation Directors have contributed $15,100 to Senator Emil Jones.”
Altogether, between 1997 and 2007, Jones received $56,500 from CSU faculty and officials. Barack Obama, perhaps, sees virtue in steering funds to Chicago State University - though one has to wonder why, given the university’s reputation. Or, perhaps, he has seen that lawmakers who treat Chicago State well are rewarded well in return. Or, perhaps, Obama is merely supporting an institution whose employees support an ally whose friendship was integral in Sen. Obama’s rise from obscurity to presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee.
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