Mark Kirk was characterized in many different ways as he made the jump from U.S. representative to his new position as U.S. senator.
His opponent for the Senate seat, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, painted Kirk as a man who spun tall tales about his past, who changed his mind about legislation when he returned to Washington, D.C., and who is a friend to Wall Street and big business.
Those who have worked with him over the years say he is smart, works exceptionally hard, fights for causes he cares about and feels a deep connection to the military because of his years of service. They call him an apt multitasker and a “policy wonk.”
Kirk calls himself “a fiscal conservative, a social moderate and a national security hawk.”
There are narratives to support all those characterizations. As Kirk enters a strongly partisan Senate landscape, with many other members of his freshman class having a decidedly more conservative bent than his own record, Illinois voters who are familiar with Rep. Kirk are watching to see what kind of legislator Sen. Kirk will be.
Kirk began his political career as a legislative assistant in the office of former U.S. Rep. John Porter after earning a master’s degree at the London School of Economics.
Porter says Kirk was intelligent, hardworking and stood out in a group that he describes as the “best and the brightest.” Kirk worked his way up to become Porter’s chief of staff. While working “full time and a half,” as Porter describes it, Kirk also earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in?Washington, D.C., studying at night.
William Cadigan, who worked for Porter when Kirk was chief of staff, says Kirk’s schedule made him miss out on most of the staff softball team’s winning season, though Kirk did make it to the game where they clinched their title.
He adds that Kirk encouraged a “collegial” attitude in the office, and unlike many congressional chiefs of staff, was not a strict gatekeeper when it came to access to his boss. “Chiefs of staffs, if they want to, can dominate the environment in a congressional office,” Cadigan says. “Mark was always one to let someone who had a good idea to, one, take credit; and two, take it to John Porter.”
During the U.S. Senate race, voters were hit by an onslaught of negative ads from both sides. Kirk accused former banker Giannoulias of making loans to mobsters, while Giannoulias called Kirk’s integrity into question when reports surfaced that he had overstated aspects of his military record, including a claim that he won a prestigious award when it actually went to his team.
Inaccuracies in accounts of his military service led reporters to look into other aspects of Kirk’s past, such as an often-told story from his teenage years about being rescued by the Coast Guard after his sailboat capsized in Lake Michigan. The Chicago Tribune questioned Kirk’s claims that the rescue happened after sunset and that his body temperature had reached 82 degrees. However, the larger aspects of his account proved true.
“This is one of the most important events in my life. I was not as well-focused before this event but very well-focused after, aware of your own mortality. … Thirty-four years ago, as a 16-year-old, this is the way I remember it,” Kirk told the Tribune.
When asked after the election whether he would like to clarify some of the things that — by his own account — he “misremembered,” Kirk reiterates a statement he made often on the campaign trail. “I’ve spent 20 years of my life in the [Navy] reserve service. … I made mistakes. I owned them. I apologized for them, and I corrected them.”
Kirk — who, according to the Washington Post, has received at least six military awards and decorations — adds, “I would give my life up for this country.”
Porter chalks up Kirk’s inaccurate recollections about his experience in the Navy as “sloppiness” and human error, as opposed to an effort to inflate his resume. “That’s an unforced error. He already had the best record in the Congress,” Porter says.
“I think that if it had just been on policy — Mark — his margin of victory would have been much, much bigger. … It’s politics, and Mark certainly sought the position knowing that it would be a rigorous campaign,” Cadigan says.
Kent Redfield, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield, says the discrepancies caused concern among voters. “I think the question of embellishing the narrative and embellishing the resume are things that give you pause in terms of kind of how comfortable he is and sure he is of his identity.”
Throughout the campaign, Kirk called for an end to legislative earmarks — spending authority inserted into a bill, often at a lawmaker’s request, that goes to a specific state or project. Shortly before he took office, his Republican colleagues took a vow not to support any earmarked funds.
As a U.S. representative, Kirk supported spending on Illinois projects, including the merger of a veterans hospital and Navy medical facility, which were funded with earmarks. However, he says lawmakers should have to persuade the president’s administration to include a project in the budget instead of pushing it through in legislation that is often unrelated or using funds as a bargaining chip for votes on a bill.
Al Pate, director of the North Chicago Veterans Affairs Medical Hospital when it was targeted for closure, paints the picture of a man who saw a simple solution to a problem and then pushed on doggedly until it became a reality. When the hospital was going to be closed, Kirk proposed a merger with the nearby Naval Hospital Great Lakes. “No one had ever done what Mark Kirk had proposed. … I think it’s a model for the future. It’s a great model,” Pate says.
Pate says the renovations required for the merger were funded in part with federal money earmarked for the project. He adds that it was an uphill climb for Kirk to find backing in Congress and get the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on board with a first-of-its-kind plan.
“It looked a lot to me like a one-man crusade,” Pate says. “He didn’t give up. … He was very serious. … This went beyond just providing service to his constituents. This ran deeper than that.”
Pate says Kirk’s Navy service lent him credibility and insight when dealing with the military administration. He says the combined medical facility will bring benefits that the separate units could not, such as better technology and the opportunity for the Army and Navy to share doctors and expensive medical equipment.
“He’s never taken full credit for what I know had to have been not an easy call for him,” says Pate. “If Mark Kirk hadn’t been in the House from the 10th [District], it’s probably a safe bet to say that never would have happened.”
Although Kirk fought to save the veterans hospital, he has called for cuts in defense funding as part of an overall plan to reduce spending and balance the federal budget. He describes the spending in the federal stimulus plan as a “sugar high” from which the country is now crashing as the money begins to run out.
Kirk supports the creation of a bipartisan group similar to the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, also known as the Grace Commission, which operated under President Ronald Reagan. Kirk says such a committee geared toward current spending reductions should have the authority to present recommendations to Congress for an up-or-down vote.
Some of Kirk’s biggest campaign contributors include investment firms such as New York-based Elliot Management, Chicago-based Madison Dearborn Partners and JP Morgan Chase & Co., but Kirk says such contributions will not hinder his ability to consider investment sector reform, which may come up for consideration in the Senate. Of the Wall Street reform bill that President Barack Obama signed in July, Kirk says, “We hit the wrong institution.” In the wake of the housing crisis, he says, the government should have cracked down harder on mortgage lenders Fannie May and Freddie Mac. Kirk believes the government has had a hand in slowing economic growth with “too much spending, too much debt and too much regulation.”
He adds: “I support capitalism. And I think that the free markets made this country the largest economy on Earth.”
Porter says Kirk is entering the U.S. Senate when Republicans are demanding party loyalty through increasingly extreme means. “The thing that’s most different from when I served is that the party discipline is just unbelievable.”
He says threats from party leaders to strip members of leadership positions, to juggle their committee assignments or even to support primary challengers have made crossing the aisle on a vote more of a high-pressure situation than it was during his tenure in Congress. “I was never ever threatened by the party,” Porter says.
Redfield agrees that the partisanship may be a challenge for a “policy- focused workhorse” such as Kirk. He says Kirk moved to the right before the recent election in an effort to court the Republican base, but “by any stretch of the imagination, he is not a ‘movement conservative.’”
Redfield adds that Kirk, as a moderate, may be able to lay low and avoid a lot of the party pressure because plenty of other members will be ready to block Democratic legislation. “They’re either going to have an agreement or he’s going to have a bunch of other people that are willing to filibuster, so he doesn’t have to take the tough votes.”
During the campaign, Kirk changed his position on a climate bill that was geared toward reducing carbon emissions. Although he supported the cap-and-trade legislation in the U.S. House, Kirk says he cannot back it now that he represents the entire state, including coal mining and manufacturing interests, which it would hit hard. Kirk says lawmakers must use the incentive of “carrots” to encourage businesses to cut carbon emissions voluntarily instead of the “stick” of making them pay for the carbon they release.
He adds that he tries to find a balance between supporting what is most popular among Illinois voters and backing what he believes to be the best policy. “Almost always, I vote with my heart,” Kirk says.
A recent Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll found that more than 70 percent of Illinoisans somewhat or strongly favor repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians serving in the military. When asked if the poll results might influence his vote on repeal, Kirk, who supports civil unions for same-sex couples, says he is more concerned about making the choice that is best for the military. He voted against a repeal in the House because he says lawmakers “jumped the gun” by taking the vote before the Pentagon released its report on the issue. (The report had not been released when Kirk was interviewed for this article.) When asked if it had the potential to change his vote, he said he would “certainly read every word of the report” and “take it into consideration.”
Redfield says those trying to pin down what kind of U.S. senator Kirk may become will likely watch his decision on “don’t ask, don’t tell” closely. “How he votes on that will give you some sense of maybe how things are going to go for the next six years.”
Redfield adds that Kirk could find a productive niche focusing on foreign policy and defense issues. And unlike many U.S. senators, Kirk may not need to court the media to fulfill ambitions for higher office. Redfield says, “I don’t think Mark Kirk wants to be president, and I think he wants to make a difference in policy areas.”
Illinois Issues, January 2011
