Obama Urges Bipartisanship in Address to Illinois General Assembly

President Barack Obama took a trip down memory lane Wednesday, recalling more political collegiality in his home state of IL where he first held public office and decrying the fractious national political scene in Washington.

In a not-so-subtle jab at Donald Trump, President Obama today railed against low-brow political discourse, calling for a “modicum of civility”.

“We’ve always gone through periods when our democracy seems stuck and when that happens we have to find a new way of doing business”. The people of IL, he explained, made him believe “there’s nothing we can’t do” if politicians approached politics with “common sense, a commitment to fairness, and the belief that we’re all in this together”.

Restricting money’s influence on politics, changing the congressional redistricting process and removing barriers to register and vote were several solutions Obama suggested to cultivate bipartisanship.

President Barack Obama is set to visit Springfield in order to address lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly on February 10.

The president was candid during his speech to lawmakers, acknowledging the problems of division and gridlock in American politics.

“So often these debates, particularly in Washington but increasingly in state legislatures, become abstractions”, he said, adding that voters have become turned off of a politics that “encourages the kind of ideological fealty that rejects any form of compromise as weakness”.

That progress aside, Obama’s determination to change “the ways of Washington” has shown few signs of being realized – a fact Obama conceded in January.

“My hope is, is that I help create a tone for the next President”.

The president jokingly referred to Democratic State Representative Ken Dunkin, whose votes with the Republicans have prevented any Democratic overrides of Governor Bruce Rauner’s vetoes. “Politics aside, a sitting president, one who came from our humble chambers and was able to talk about his experiences with members of the general assembly, I thought it was great”. The South Side Democrat, sometimes called the “Runaway Rep”, has brazenly defied his party’s unquestioned leader – House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Obama did mention dark money in his speech, saying that it “drowns out ordinary voices”.

“I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this – a certain audacity – to this announcement”, Obama said then, with his wife, Michelle, and two young daughters standing nearby.

“It turns folks off. It discourages them. As all of you know, it could be better, and all of you would feel prouder of the work you do if it was better”.

One thing I focused on, for example, was how we can make voting easier, not harder, and modernize it for the way we live now.