The timing for its dedication could not be better for Democrat Dick Durbin than a brilliantly sunny autumn afternoon just a few weeks before he is up for re-election to the U.S. Senate. Events like this are the political payoff for pork-barrel politics. And the senator from Illinois is as well-practiced at the choreography of such moments as he is at the behind-the-scenes legislative maneuvering involved in capturing federal funds, in this case $1.7 million for the bridge.

After an aide strategically parks Durbin's car out of range of the television cameras assembled for the occasion, the stocky 57-year-old senator strides into their view from across the bridge.

"There's the B-Roll," whispers an aide, using an insiders' term for the video that the Durbin campaign hopes will appear on the evening news and visually reinforce a time-tested political message: Senator delivers for local constituency.

During his nearly six years in the U.S. Senate and 14 years in the House of Representatives, Dick Durbin has built a career around a formula for success well-proven among politicians who share his liberal outlook. He blends a zealous pursuit of federally funded pork, diligent attention to other important home-state interests and a heavy dose of old-fashioned prairie populism.

Those have been the pillars of Durbin's political strength in Illinois--he enters the final weeks of his re-election campaign with a commanding lead both in the polls and in fundraising--while on the national stage he is emerging as one of his party's most energetic and partisan spokesmen.

He is a consummate political pro who has spent his adult life in the business. He literally got his start in the mail room--among other duties--as a college intern for the late Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas.

Pithy and plain-spoken, Durbin's easygoing manner masks a skilled debater and tough-minded foe. And the combination of traits enhances his effectiveness in delivering his party's message. "He's kind of cotton on the outside and steel on the inside," said Democratic strategist James Carville. "He's smiling, very nice, very personable. But he's really pretty sharp. He cuts people, and they don't know 'til they look down that their stomach's bleeding."

Durbin vigorously defended President Clinton through fundraising scandals and impeachment. He has been a forceful critic of President Bush's judicial nominees. Now, he is one of the few senators running for re-election this year who dared vote against the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war against Iraq.

"I really had to face the families of Illinois and say to them that our government is trying everything reasonably possible to avoid war and that resolution didn't allow me to do that." Durbin said afterward.

Rapid advancement

Though the Senate is renowned for slow advancement of newcomers, Durbin in his first term has rapidly gained a toehold on influence within the chamber. He is a junior member of the Democratic party leadership and has an assignment on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which handles federal spending and places him in a good position to steer funding back home.

Senate Republican aides said Durbin's partisan attacks have provoked enmity from Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other GOP leaders in the Senate. But he maintains a strong working relationship on local issues with Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and many of Illinois' other GOP House members.

"They don't agree on everything," said Mike Stokke, Hastert's deputy chief of staff. "But they work together on Illinois things. And that's what's important to them both."

The Senate achievement Durbin said he is most proud of is a deal involving Medicaid reimbursement rules that protected federal funding for Illinois. "That really meant a lot, particularly to poorer hospitals," Durbin said.

Illinois Issues magazine once dubbed Durbin "Mr. Fixit." He hews to a deeply rooted tradition of pragmatism in Illinois politics. Though a longtime ally of organized labor, he also actively courts support from the state's business community by carrying water for them.

He broke with union supporters to vote for the North American Free Trade Agreement and for permanent normal trading relations with China, both important causes for agricultural producers and the state's export-oriented manufacturers. And even after accounting giant Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice recently, Durbin continued to publicly defend the Chicago-based firm, saying it was unfair to indict the entire company for its auditors' role in the Enron scandal.

Still, Durbin has yet to deliver on the most visible mission he has undertaken for his home state: passage of legislation to cement a city-state agreement to expand O'Hare International Airport. The broader national causes Durbin has championed have a distinctly populist cast.

He is best known for battling the tobacco industry. In the Senate, he moved to ban smoking on international flights and pressed to make a proposed-but-never-ratified national tobacco lawsuit settlement significantly more punitive.

His other major cause has been gun control, in which he has pressed for incremental restrictions on gun ownership. Most of his legislation foundered amid opposition from politically powerful gun rights groups, but he did win passage of a proposal to forbid possession of guns by foreigners with non-resident visas.

He also has targeted consumer issues. He passed legislation in 1998 to control "slamming," in which a telephone company switches a customer's long-distance service without proper authorization. He is among a group of senators that helped block bankruptcy reform legislation because they considered it too draconian toward debtors.

Liberal mentors

Annual voting studies by Congressional Quarterly and the National Journal consistently rate him among the more liberal members of the Senate.

Durbin counts as his mentors two of Illinois' best-known liberal figures, Douglas and former Sen. Paul Simon. It was Simon who, while lieutenant governor, hired Durbin out of law school to be his legal counsel.

While working part-time as parliamentarian for the Illinois state Senate, Durbin ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the chamber in 1976 and then lost again two years later in a bid for lieutenant governor.

But with considerable help from pro-Israeli donors, he unseated Downstate Republican congressman Paul Findley, who was a supporter of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Durbin was raised in East St. Louis, where his Irish-American father, William, worked as a railroad stevedore but died of lung cancer when Durbin was a teen. His mother, Ann, a Lithuanian immigrant, worked as a railroad payroll clerk.

His wife, Loretta, is a lobbyist in Springfield.

Clients have included the pharmaceutical firm Wyeth-Ayerst, the beer wholesale dealership of Chicago Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz, Eastern Illinois University and a number of legal assistance clinics.

She said she sees no conflict between her husband's role as a senator and her lobbying practice, which lobbies only state government. She added that it has been approved by the Senate Ethics Committee.

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THE CANDIDATE

Dick Durbin

Born: Nov. 21, 1944.

Family: Married to Loretta Schaefer, now a lobbyist in Springfield, on June 24, 1967. Father of Christine, 34, Paul, 33, and Jennifer, 31.

Education: BS in economics, Georgetown University, 1966. JD, Georgetown Law School, 1969.

Career highlights: Chief legal counsel, Lt. Gov. Paul Simon, 1969; Illinois state Senate parliamentarian, 1969-1977; U.S. congressman, 1983-1996; U.S. senator, 1997-present.

Publication: Chicago Tribune
Date: October 14, 2002
Author: Mike Dorning

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