You are here:
Home / Archives for admin
Former president Barack Obama appeared for jury duty in Chicago on Wednesday, but he was not chosen to serve.
Wearing a sport coat, shirt and no tie, the former leader of the free world waved to onlookers as he approached the Richard J. Daley Center, according to the Associated Press.
Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans told reporters that Obama was not selected for duty, according to the AP, but still, it was an unusual day in the downtown court complex.
Though Obama and his wife, Michelle, have said they plan to live in Washington while their daughter Sasha finishes high school, they still own a Georgian-style home in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.
Obama left his Chicago home Wednesday morning, his motorcade parked in a secure garage underneath the Daley Center building, and he arrived in court by 10 a.m., according to the Chicago Tribune. He used the same private elevator judges use to make it to the 17th-floor jury assembly room, where he ran into reporters, attorneys and court staff eager to see him, the Tribune reported.
[Citizen Obama, welcome to jury duty]
A court clerk exclaimed, “He’s gorgeous!” when she saw Obama, according to the Chicago Tribune.
While waiting in the jury assembly area, the Tribune said, prospective jurors are allowed to bring reading materials and use their cellphones. They are paid $17.20 per day.
In a video posted by Twitter user @1992AngelM, Obama is walking around the jury assembly room, shaking hands. He can be heard saying, “Thanks everybody for serving on the jury, or at least being willing to.”
“This looks like Chicago right here,” he says in the video. “I like that.”
Obama sightings are frequently shared on social media, such as the photos and videos of the former president’s trip to the British Virgin Islands, which included a video showing him in shorts, polo shirt, flip-flops and a backward hat.
The 2010 State of the Union address kept Obama from appearing for jury duty the last time he was summoned. Evans first told county commissioners that Obama, who encourages civic engagement, would serve, and told the Tribune that: “He made it crystal clear to me through his representative that he would carry out his public duty as a citizen and resident of this community.”
The Tribune reported that other high-profile Chicagoans have reported for jury duty, including Oprah Winfrey. And other former presidents have also done it.
George W. Bush, more than six years after the end of his presidency, sat through the jury selection panel at George Allen Dallas County Civil Court building in August 2015 but was not chosen as a juror.
Former president Bill Clinton became Prospective Juror No. 142 in federal court in Manhattan in March 2003, but was eventually dismissed for the case involving a gang shooting in the Bronx, according to the New York Times.
Joe Biden was called for jury duty in Delaware in January 2011 while he was serving as vice president but was not chosen to be a juror.
The Washington Post reported that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. reported for jury duty in Montgomery County, Md., in April 2015. He was being considered for a civil case involving a car crash but was not selected.
A 50-year-old man told the Tribune he was excited about possibly seeing Obama Wednesday.
“It’s cool,” Ronald Stubbs told the Tribune before reporting for jury duty. “I would love to see the former president.”
Rachel Siegel contributed to this report.
Read more:
Barack Obama is building a library — and grappling again with Chicago politics
Obama said leaving Malia at college was ‘like open heart surgery.’ Of course he cried.
She was a historic first lady, but Michelle Obama says some never saw past ‘my skin color’
Share and Enjoy
Rosemary Warnock, a registered nurse at Maine Health, exits the Merrill Auditorium voting station in Portland, Maine, early Tuesday. She said she was motivated to vote for Medicaid expansion.
Ben McCanna/Press Herald via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Ben McCanna/Press Herald via Getty Images
![]()
Rosemary Warnock, a registered nurse at Maine Health, exits the Merrill Auditorium voting station in Portland, Maine, early Tuesday. She said she was motivated to vote for Medicaid expansion.
Ben McCanna/Press Herald via Getty Images
Just hours after Maine voters became the first in the nation to use the ballot box to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Republican Gov. Paul LePage said he wouldn’t implement it unless the Legislature funds the state’s share of an expansion.
“Give me the money and I will enforce the referendum,” LePage said. Unless the Legislature fully funds the expansion — without raising taxes or using the state’s rainy day fund — he said he will not implement it.
LePage has long been a staunch opponent of Medicaid expansion. The Maine Legislature has passed bills to expand the insurance program five times since 2013, but the governor has vetoed each one.
That track record prompted Robyn Merrill, co-chair of the coalition Mainers for Health Care, to take the matter directly to voters on Tuesday.
The strategy worked. Medicaid expansion, or Question 2, passed handily, with 59 percent of voters in favor and 41 percent against.
“Maine is sending a strong and weighty message to politicians in Augusta, and across the country,” Merrill said. “We need more affordable health care, not less.”
Medicaid expansion would bring health coverage to about 70,000 people in Maine.
As a battle now brews over implementation in Maine, other states are likely to be watching: Groups in Idaho and Utah are trying to put Medicaid expansion on their state ballots next year.
With passage of the ballot measure, Maine is poised to join the 31 states and the District of Columbia that have already expanded Medicaid to cover adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s about $16,000 for an individual, and about $34,000 for a family of four.
Currently, people in Maine who make too much for traditional Medicaid and who aren’t eligible for subsidized health insurance on the federal marketplace fall into a coverage gap. It was created when the Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act optional.
That’s the situation Kathleen Phelps finds herself in. A hairdresser from Waterville who has emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, she says she has had to forgo her medications and oxygen because she can’t afford them. “Finally, finally, maybe people now, people like myself, can get the health care we need,” she said.
Medicaid expansion would also be a win for hospitals. More than half of them in Maine are operating in the red. Across the state, they provide more than $100 million a year in charity care, according to the Maine Hospital Association. Expanding Medicaid coverage would bolster their fiscal health and give doctors and nurses more options to treat their formerly uninsured patients, says Jeff Austin, a spokesman with the association.
“There are just avenues of care that open up when you see a patient, from recommending a prescription drug or seeing a counselor,” he said. “Doors that were closed previously will now be open.”
But voter approval may not be enough. Though a legislative budget analysis office estimates Medicaid expansion would bring about $500 million in federal funding to Maine each year, it would also cost the state about $50 million a year.
The fate of the Medicaid expansion will now be in the hands of the Legislature, where lawmakers can change it like any other bill. Four ballot initiatives passed by Maine voters last year have been delayed, altered or overturned.
But state Democratic leaders pledge to implement the measure. “Any attempts to illegally delay or subvert the law … will be fought with every recourse at our disposal,” Speaker of the House Sara Gideon said. “Mainers demanded affordable access to health care yesterday, and that is exactly what we intend to deliver.”
This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, local member stations and Kaiser Health News. Follow @PattyWight on Twitter.
Share and Enjoy
