The Audacity of Hope

Chapter Nine
Family
BY THE START of my second year in the Senate, my life had settled into a
manageable rhythm. I would leave Chicago Monday night or early Tuesday morning,
depending on the Senate’s voting schedule. Other than daily trips to the Senate gym and
the rare lunch or dinner with a friend, the next three days would be consumed by a
predictable series of tasks—committee markups, votes, caucus lunches, floor
statements, speeches, photos with interns, evening fund-raisers, returning phone calls,
writing correspondence, reviewing legislation, drafting op-eds, recording podcasts,
receiving policy briefings, hosting constituent coffees, and attending an endless series of
meetings. On Thursday afternoon, we would get word from the cloakroom as to when
the last vote would be, and at the appointed hour I’d line up in the well of the Senate
alongside my colleagues to cast my vote, before trotting down the Capitol steps in hopes
of catching a flight that would get me home before the girls went to bed.
Despite the hectic schedule, I found the work fascinating, if occasionally frustrating.
Contrary to popular perceptions, only about two dozen significant bills come up for a
roll-call vote on the Senate floor every year, and almost none of those are sponsored by
a member of the minority party. As a result, most of my major initiatives—the
formation of public school innovation districts, a plan to help U.S. automakers pay for
their retiree health-care costs in exchange for increased fuel economy standards, an
expansion of the Pell Grant program to help low-income students meet rising college
tuition costs—languished in committee.
On the other hand, thanks to great work by my staff, I managed to get a respectable
number of amendments passed. We helped provide funds for homeless veterans. We
provided tax credits to gas stations for installing E85 fuel pumps. We obtained funding
to help the World Health Organization monitor and respond to a potential avian flu
pandemic. We got an amendment out of the Senate eliminating no-bid contracts in the
post-Katrina reconstruction, so more money would actually end up in the hands of the
tragedy’s victims. None of these amendments would transform the country, but I took
satisfaction in knowing that each of them helped some people in a modest way or
nudged the law in a direction that might prove to be more economical, more
responsible, or more just.
One day in February I found myself in particularly good spirits, having just completed a
hearing on legislation that Dick Lugar and I were sponsoring aimed at restricting
weapons proliferation and the black-market arms trade. Because Dick was not only the
Senate’s leading expert on proliferation issues but also the chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, prospects for the bill seemed promising. Wanting to
share the good news, I called Michelle from my D.C. office and started explaining the
significance of the bill—how shoulder-to-air missiles could threaten commercial air
travel if they fell into the wrong hands, how small-arms stockpiles left over from the
Cold War continued to feed conflict across the globe. Michelle cut me off.
“We have ants.”