Chapter
IV: For the Slumlord's Defense, Barack Obama, Esq.
From the Washington Examiner
From the Washington Examiner
Writing
in his 1995 autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," Obama said he
became "a civil rights lawyer" because "to lend meaning to a
community's suffering and take part in its healing -- that required something
more."
There
was indeed "something more" to Obama's legal career, but it wasn't
civil rights litigation at the Chicago law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill &
Galland, where he was employed for a decade.
"He
spent about half his time working with Bill Miceli and my former partner,
Allison Davis, and that team," senior partner Judson Miner told The
Washington Examiner. Most of the entries on Obama's client list for the firm
from that period were in real estate, construction and finance.
Miceli
and Davis were the partners in charge of the firm's housing and real estate
practices. Davis would later leave
the firm to join Obama mentor Tony Rezko in
the real estate development business.
In
March 1994, a year before "Dreams" was published, Obama was the lead
defense attorney on an obscure case in Cook County Court that has heretofore
escaped examination by the national media.
In
this case, Obama defended a Chicago slumlord and powerful political ally who
was charged with a long list of offenses against poor residents. The defendant
was the Woodlawn Preservation & Investment Corp., controlled by Bishop
Arthur Brazier, a South Side Chicago preacher and political operator.
Brazier's
burgeoning real estate empire included a low-income housing project at 6223
South University. Today, MapQuest describes the Woodlawn neighborhood as
"quaint and sedate." But in the winter of 1994, it was a frigid hell.
Brazier
was closely allied with Obama and his firm, not least because Davis was on
WPIC's Board of Directors. Davis was also the corporation's registered agent,
and he received the court summons when the city filed suit on the South
University apartments.
Brazier's
WPIC had failed for nearly a month to supply heat and running water for the
complex's 15 crumbling apartments. On Jan. 18, 1994, the day the heat went off,
Chicago's official high temperature was 11 below zero, the day after it was 19
below.
Even
worse, the residents were then ordered to leave the WPIC complex in the winter
chill without the due process they would have been afforded by an eviction
procedure.
In
court documents reviewed by The Washington Examiner, Daniel W. Weil,
commissioner of Chicago's Buildings Department, slammed WPIC for multiple
municipal code violations, including "failure to maintain adequate
heat," failure "to provide every family unit with approved heating
facilities," and "failure to provide adequate" supplies of either
hot or cold running water.
Things
were so bad that the city's outraged corporation counsel declared that
"the levying of a fine is not an adequate remedy" and asked the court
for a permanent injunction against WPIC, appointment of a receiver and imposition
of a lien on WPIC to pay for repairs, attorneys' fees and court costs.
But
Obama did his work so well that in the end, on March 3, 1994, the court simply
fined WPIC $50. Only then did Obama tell the court of the forcible removal of
tenants in the bitter cold.
An
experienced Chicago housing attorney who reviewed the case at the Examiner's
request said $50 fines against politically powerful slumlords were not uncommon
at that time. The lawyer, who currently works for the city, asked to remain
anonymous for fear of reprisal.
The
attorney termed the forcible removal of the residents in the frigid Chicago
winter "outrageous," and said it looked like "a way to avoid a
lengthy eviction process by law. And if the tenants had leases, they should
have been bought out with a cash payment in return for leaving the premises
early."
The
South University apartments eventually became part of a real estate syndication
deal that Obama helped negotiate. Brazier remained as the controlling general
partner, while the syndicated investors became limited partners.
The
merging of Brazier's insider contacts and influence with the limited partners'
financial resources enabled them to benefit collectively from bigger, more
profitable deals than they would have each been able to do individually.
A
Chicago housing expert with direct knowledge of WPIC's real estate dealings
told the Examiner that the syndication deal involving the apartments likely was
being negotiated when the building lost heat.
"The
property was one of five or six that was bundled together into a partnership
and syndicated with tax credits," he said. It was a "prelude to being
put into the partnership, which it ultimately was for purposes of the
refinancing and syndication."
The
WPIC case illustrates how Obama functioned at the center of a historic
accommodation then developing between the Daley machine and its traditional
opponents among the city's liberal reformers.
Lubricating
the deal was a flood of public and nonprofit federal and state tax credits and
funding for low-income-housing projects that would enrich developers and
empower ambitious politicians like Obama, at the expense of taxpayers and,
especially, the poor.
Brazier
was not merely an Obama legal client. A disciple of Chicago's famous radical activist
Saul Alinsky, Brazier was also a close political ally of Daley's and one of the
key movers and shakers among the city's progressive political elite who in the
years ahead would advance Obama at every turn.
Obama
also did legal work involved in the establishment of four Brazier-Rezko limited
partnerships: Woodlawn Partners Ltd., Central Woodlawn Partnership, KRMB
Limited Partnership and Woodlawn Drexel Ltd. Partnership. Rezko is now serving
a 10-year federal prison sentence for fraud and attempted bribery on state
government contracts.
The
former Obama firm still represents WPIC, as well as Brazier's church, the
Apostolic Church of God, and his Fund for Community Redevelopment and
Revitalization. Brazier's son now oversees the properties.
As
Brazier clung to life in 2010 in a Chicago hospital, Obama called him from the
White House for what relatives described as an extremely tearful farewell.
Shortly
after Brazier died, Obama issued a statement saying of the man he had once
helped put 15 poor families on the street in the dead of winter:
"There
is no way that we can replace the gentle heart and boundless determination that
Bishop Brazier brought to some of the most pressing challenges facing Chicago
and our nation."
Next: Chapter V: Obama's Toughest Critics on the Left
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