Bobby Rush
Bobby Lee Rush is an American politician, activist, and pastor who served as the U.S. representative for for three decades, ending in 2023. A civil rights activist during the 1960s, Rush co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Rush was first elected to Congress in 1992. He won consecutive reelections until his retirement. His district was originally principally on the South Side of Chicago, with a population from 2003 to early 2013 that was 65% African-American, a higher proportion than any other congressional district. In 2011 the Illinois General Assembly redistricted this area after the 2010 census. Although still minority-majority, since early 2013 it is 51.3% African American, 36.1% White, 9.8% Hispanic, and 2% Asian. A member of the Democratic Party, Rush is the only politician to have defeated Barack Obama in an election, which he did in the 2000 Democratic primary for Illinois's 1st congressional district.
On January 3, 2022, Rush announced that he was retiring from Congress.
Early life, education, and activism
Rush was born on November 23, 1946, in Albany, Georgia. After his parents separated when Rush was 7 years old, his mother took him and his siblings to Chicago, Illinois, joining the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South in the first part of the 20th century. In 1963, Rush dropped out of high school before graduating and joined the U.S. Army. While stationed in Chicago in 1966, he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which had helped obtain national civil rights legislation passed in 1964 and 1965. In 1968, he went AWOL from the Army and co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. He later finished his Army service, receiving an honorable discharge.Throughout the 1960s, Rush was involved in the civil rights movement and worked in civil disobedience campaigns in the southern United States. After co-founding the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, he served as its defense minister. After the Chicago Police Department and the State's Attorney Office assassinated Black Panther Fred Hampton in a police raid, Rush said, "We needed to arm ourselves", and called the police "pigs". Earlier that year, Rush had discussed the philosophy of his membership in the Black Panthers, saying, "Black people have been on the defensive for all these years. The trend now is not to wait to be attacked. We advocate offensive violence against the power structure." After Hampton's death, Rush became acting chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. He worked on several nonviolent projects that built support for the Black Panthers in African-American communities, such as coordinating a medical clinic which offered sickle-cell anemia testing on an unprecedented scale. Rush was imprisoned for six months in 1972 on a weapons charge after carrying a pistol into a police station. In 1974, he left the Black Panthers, who were already in decline. "We started glorifying thuggery and drugs", he told People. A deeply religious born-again Christian, Rush said, "I don't repudiate any of my involvement in the Panther party—it was part of my maturing."
Formal education
Rush earned his Bachelor of General Studies with honors from Roosevelt University in 1973, and a Master's degree in political science from University of Illinois at Chicago in 1974. He completed a degree in theological studies at McCormick Theological Seminary in 1998. On May 13, 2017, Rush received a Doctorate of Humanities, honoris causa, from the Illinois Institute of Technology for his outstanding contributions to Chicago.Politics
Chicago politics
In 1975, Rush ran for a seat on the Chicago City Council, the first of several black militants to seek political office, and lost to incumbent alderman William Barnett, receiving 23% of the vote to Barnett's 55% and Larry S. Bullock's 21%. He ran again in 1983 and won, alongside Harold Washington's victory as Chicago's first black mayor. Rush supported Washington's coalition during the Council Wars that followed the 1983 election. Rush's allies in the black-power movement abandoned the Democrats in the wake of the political turmoil that followed the sudden death of Washington in 1987, and formed their own political party, naming it after Washington. Rush infuriated Harold Washington Party leaders by spurning their candidates for local offices and sometimes backing white Democrats instead. He worked with the Democrats and was rewarded with the deputy chairmanship of the state party.Congressional elections
After redistricting in 1992, Rush ran in Illinois's newly redrawn 1st congressional district, which included much of Chicago's South Side. The district had a high proportion of African-American residents; it has been represented by Black congressmen since 1929. Rush defeated incumbent U.S. Representative Charles Hayes and six other candidates in the Democratic primary election. He won the general election with 83% of the vote. The district has been in Democratic hands since 1935.In the 2000 Democratic primary for the district, Rush was challenged by Illinois State Senator Barack Obama. During the primary, Rush said, "Barack Obama went to Harvard and became an educated fool. Barack is a person who read about the civil rights protests and thinks he knows all about it."
Rush claimed Obama was insufficiently rooted in Chicago's black neighborhoods to represent constituents' concerns. Obama said Rush was a part of "a politics that is rooted in the past" and said he could build bridges with whites to get things done. But while Obama did well in his own Hyde Park base, he did not get enough support from the surrounding black neighborhoods. Starting with 10% name recognition, Obama eventually gained 30% of the vote, losing by more than 2 to 1 despite winning among white voters. Rush won 61% of the vote, and won the general election with 88% of the vote.
Subsequent Chicago politics
In 1999, Rush ran for mayor of Chicago, but lost to incumbent Richard M. Daley, an ethnic Irish American whose father had long controlled the city as mayor. He remained active in city and regional politics.In 2013, Rush criticized U.S. Senator Mark Kirk's proposal that 18,000 members of the Chicago gang "Gangster Disciples" be arrested, calling Kirk's suggestion "headline grabbing" and an "upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about". A spokesman for Kirk said Kirk had dealt with the issues for decades.
Also in 2013, Alex Clifford was forced to resign as CEO of Metra commuter rail agency, but soon after he left, a memo was released indirectly accusing Rush of using his political power to steer a $50,000 contract to a Washington-based business group.
Endorsements
In the 2015 Chicago mayoral election, Rush endorsed Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Emanuel's runoff reelection campaign against Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.In the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, Rush endorsed Bill Daley in the first round and Toni Preckwinkle in the runoff.
Though a very close friend of former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, Rush announced early on in the 2008 Democratic primaries that he would support Obama. After Obama won the presidency and vacated his Senate seat, Rush said that an African American should be appointed to the seat: "With the resignation of President-elect Obama, we now have no African-Americans in the United States Senate, and we believe it will be a national disgrace to not have this seat filled by one of the many capable African-American Illinois politicians." Rush said he did not support any particular person and was not interested in the seat. On December 30, 2008, Governor Rod Blagojevich announced his appointment of Roland Burris, the former Attorney General of Illinois; Rush was present at the press conference and spoke in support of Burris.
Rush endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. After she dropped out, he endorsed Michael Bloomberg and became his campaign's national co-chair.
Rush endorsed incumbent Lori Lightfoot in the 2023 Chicago mayoral election. After Lightfoot failed to advance to the runoff, Rush endorsed Paul Vallas, who was backed by Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police. Vallas lost to progressive Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.
U.S. House of Representatives
Rush had been considered a loyal Democrat during his tenure; in the 110th Congress, he voted with his party 97.8% of the time. Rush was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Baltic Caucus.Issues
;Fiscal and IncomeRush initiated the Chicago Partnership for the Earned Income Tax Credit, an ongoing program designed to help low-income working Chicago residents receive the Earned Income Tax Credit, a federal income tax credit.
;Healthcare
Rush sponsored the Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act passed in 1999. The law temporarily addressed the nursing shortage by providing non-immigrant visas for qualified foreign nurses in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and was reauthorized in 2005. Rush sponsored the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act, named for a Chicago native who jumped to her death from a 12th-story window due to postpartum depression. The bill would provide for research on postpartum depression and psychosis and services for people suffering from these disorders. The Children's Health Act, passed in 2000, incorporated Rush's Urban Asthma Reduction Act of 1999, amending the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant program and including an integrated approach to asthma management.
;Energy
Rush was very outspoken against the GOP's No More Solyndras Bill, which would override a loan guarantee by the Energy Department to encourage research and development. The Energy Department provided a federal loan guarantee to the solar manufacturing company Solyndra to help with R&D. He said the No More Solyndras Bill would be better named the No More Innovation Bill.
;Firearms
Rush introduced Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 on January 6, 2009. The bill would require all owners of handguns and semiautomatic firearms to register for a federal firearms license. All sales of the subject firearms would have to go through a licensed dealer. It would also make it illegal not to register as an owner of a firearm.
;Darfur genocide
On July 15, 2004, Rush became the second sitting member of Congress, after Charles Rangel and before Joe Hoeffel, to be arrested for trespassing while protesting the genocide in Darfur and other violations of human rights in Sudan in front of the Sudanese Embassy.
;Armed forces
On February 13, 2007, Rush opposed President George W. Bush's proposed 20,000-serviceman troop surge in Iraq. He said the troops' presence in Iraq was the greatest catalyst of violence there and advocated a political resolution of the situation. Rush said the troop surge would serve only to make the Iraqi situation more volatile.
;Trayvon Martin
On March 28, 2012, Rush addressed the House while wearing a hoodie in honor of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was shot in Florida by a local resident. He spoke against racial profiling. As the House forbids its members from wearing headgear as a breach of decorum, Rush was called out of order and escorted from the chamber.
;Lynching
Rush twice introduced the Emmett Till Antilynching Act to make lynching a federal crime. Federal anti-lynching legislation in Congress had been held up for about 100 years, but the Emmett Till Act finally became law in 2022.