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WASHINGTON — On Wednesday nights during Illinois General Assembly sessions, a group of lobbyists and lawmakers used to gather at the headquarters of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association for a weekly poker game. Barack Obama, who represented part of Chicago as state senator from 1997-2004, was a regular.
These days, Obama says lobbyists are part of the problem with Washington, and he refuses to accept their fundraising help. But during his eight years in Springfield, Ill., Obama played golf and basketball with them and hit them up for campaign donations, according to records and interviews. He shared meals with them, though he was careful to pay his own way, they say.
Obama also accepted lobbyist money when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, and he later used his influence to help secure grants for 16 Illinois-based institutions represented by six of his lobbyist contributors, public records show.
He did all that while retaining a reputation for independence. "I can't remember a time that state senator Obama wasn't on the side of the consumers," said David Kolata, executive director of the non-partisan Illinois Citizens Utility Board.
A look at Obama's past relationships with lobbyists shows that, for most of his political career, Obama wasn't as attentive to the appearance of coziness with special interests as he is now. But it also shows that he often voted against the interests of his lobbyist friends, and he helped pass two significant upgrades to Illinois campaign finance and ethics laws.
"I think that he understood that lobbyists had valuable information and are a part of the system," said Illinois lobbyist Paul Williams, an Obama contributor who represents the cable television industry, a major electric utility and other powerful interest groups. "But he doesn't necessarily want to be tied to or indebted to their financial support, which might have an influence on his decision-making process."
Obama has said he stopped taking money from lobbyists and political action committees when he began running for president in January 2007 because he came to believe that special interests were too influential in Washington. Before that, his Senate campaign committees took in $140,400 in lobbyist contributions from 2003-06, and $1.2 million from PACs, out of about $16.3 million raised, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.
In an interview last month with USA TODAY, Obama said his self-imposed ban on lobbyist and PAC donations means there are "fewer strings attached to me." He said, for example, that a lobbyist who raises campaign funds for him "is going to have some very specific interests that they want you to deal with," adding, "I'm never in that situation."
Records suggest a more complicated reality. As a U.S. senator, for example, Obama helped secured three grants totaling nearly $8 million for military fuel-cell research and other projects at Chicago State University. The university's lobbyist, Anita Estell, contributed $1,500 to Obama in 2004. Other employees at her then-firm, Van Scoyoc Associates, gave Obama $2,750, records show.
Last year, Estell brought Chicago State to her new firm, Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus. While Estell by then was barred from giving, Polsinelli lawyers who aren't lobbyists contributed $7,498 to Obama's presidential campaign, records show.
Estell said Obama was inclined to aid a minority-serving school. Donations "may matter with some candidates; I don't think it matters with him," she said.
Although he did business with lobbyists, Obama in 1998 helped pass a bill restricting lobbyist gifts and fundraisers near the Illinois Capitol building in Springfield. In 2003, he helped draft gift restrictions for state employees. And in Congress last year, he worked to enact disclosure requirements for lobbyists who raise funds for lawmakers.
He also cast some high-profile votes against powerful interest groups. In May 2003, for example, SBC Communications, Illinois' main telephone provider, deployed dozens of lobbyists who lined up much of the Democratic establishment behind legislation that consumer groups said would increase phone bills.
Michael Lieteau, a lobbyist for SBC, had played poker and basketball with Obama. Lieteau recalled, noting, as other lobbyists did, that Obama always paid his own tab.
Obama was one of just six Democratic senators who voted no. He sided against the Democratic governor, the Democratic House speaker and his mentor, Democratic Senate President Emil Jones. Even the political consultant he had hired to help him run for the U.S. Senate in 2004, David Axelrod, was working for SBC.
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