Obama an effective mediator in Illinois Senate (McClatchy Newspapers)

[Leo 9]

Obama an effective mediator in Illinois Senate

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008


SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Facing the challenge of overhauling the death-penalty law in a state rocked by revelations of botched prosecutions, Illinois state Sen. John Cullerton made a tactical political decision.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee decided to separate one controversial proposal from the broader package, one that would require videotaping interrogations in murder cases. Police and prosecutors opposed it so much that keeping it in the broader package threatened to sink the whole effort.

The state senator who later took on the task of pushing the proposal to videotape interrogations was Barack Obama.

Obama worked with Democrats, Republicans and especially with police and prosecutors to fashion a bill that all of them could support. By the time it reached the Senate floor, everyone was on board. It passed in a unanimous vote, and is now Illinois law.

How Obama did it reveals a lot about his political style, which is at the core of his appeal. It defines an approach to political problem solving that he vows can change how Washington does business.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/31759.html