Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama record the race of drivers they stopped. In February 2002, Obama introduced SB 1789, which would have adopted instant-runoff voting (IRV) for congressional and state primary elections in Illinois and authorized IRV for local elections, although it did not ultimately pass. He resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate. Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama Barack Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, when he was elected to the United States Senate. During this part of his career, Obama continued teaching constitutional law part time at the
Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency, and afterwards, a number of conspiracy theories falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the U.S. as required by . Theories alleged that Obama's published birth certificate was a forgery—that his actual birthplace was not Hawaii but Kenya. Other theories alleged that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia in childhood, thereby losing his U.S. citizenship. Still others claimed that Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen because he was born a