Biography and Legislative Focus

U. S. Representative Bobby L. Rush is a Member of the House of Representatives and a senior member of the Illinois delegation where he represents the state’s first congressional district. He is a senior Member of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee and, currently, is presiding over his second, two-year term of service as the Chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

In addition to effectively shepherding the bipartisan adoption of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-314) that was signed into law by President George W. Bush, Rush also played a leading role in helping to craft historic health insurance reform legislation that was adopted in the current session of Congress.  Rush secured important provisions in the new legislation including landmark policy provisions that advance women’s health in the treatment of postpartum depression.  The language of the Melanie Blocker Stokes Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research and Support for Postpartum Depression Act, originally authored by Rush and advanced in the Senate by U. S. Robert Menendez, was adopted, in its entirety, into the final health care reform legislation (P.L. 111-148) that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. 

With respect to trade, Rush is actively engaging the full scope of the subcommittee’s powers to help identify new international markets to help expand America’s trade interests throughout the world.  Recently, he traveled to Cuba as part of an historic Congressional delegation that met with Cuban President Raul Castro and the island nation’s reclusive former President, Fidel Castro.  This meeting was followed by a subcommittee hearing on the opportunities associated with expanding America’s trade relationship with Cuba and the introduction of his bill, H.R. 2272, the “The United States-Cuba Trade Normalization Act of 2009,” with 47 original co-sponsors.

Because Chairman Rush’s track record in policy and political activism makes him uniquely positioned to influence U.S.-Africa trade relations, he has also turned his attention to the trade opportunities that exist on the continent of Africa.

In 2009, Rush launched the Africa Partnership for Economic Growth Caucus (APEGc), an organization whose primary mission is to develop U.S. policies designed to strengthen U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa relations by promoting growth and economic development.  Congressman Rush’s actions in this area, to date,  include convening a trade reception with hundreds of business and trade executives, hosted by the non-profit Business Council for International Understanding, that featured the Obama Administration’s U. S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk; presiding over a standing room only, joint hearing on “U.S.-Africa Trade Relations: Creating a Platform for Economic Growth,” that featured leading government, business and trade executives outlining diverse opportunities for trade on the continent of Africa; and his introduction of H. Con. Res. 128 that expresses the sense of Congress that Africa is of “strategic, political, economic, and humanitarian importance to the United States.”  And, in an historic vote on July 1, 2010, Rush gained a bipartisan, unanimous vote in the House in support of H. Res. 1405, a resolution that includes H. Con. Res. 128 and congratulates the people of the 17 African nations that, in 2010, are marking the 50th year of their national independence. 

Congressman Rush was born on November 23, 1946 in Albany, Georgia. His family later moved to Chicago and lived on the near north and west sides. Rush attended Marshall High School and, at the age of 17, enlisted in the United States Army. He served in the military from 1963 until 1968, receiving an honorable discharge.

Following his military service, Rush attended Roosevelt University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in general studies, with honors, in 1973.  In 1994, he received a master’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Congressman Rush received his second master’s degree, in 1998, in theological studies from McCormick Seminary and soon, thereafter, he became an ordained Baptist minister.

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Congressman Rush worked to secure basic civil and human rights for African Americans, women and other minorities. He was a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1966 to 1968. Congressman Rush also co-founded the Illinois Black Panther Party in 1968.

While a Black Panther, he operated the Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children program. He also coordinated the Free Medical Clinic, which developed the nation’s first mass sickle cell anemia testing program. This visionary Panther initiative forced America’s health care providers to recognize the impact of sickle cell anemia on the African American community and to develop national research into its causes, effects and solutions, a practice which endures to this day.

Prior to his election to Congress, Congressman Rush was an Alderman in the Chicago City Council. He represented the 2nd Ward on Chicago’s South Side for eight years. As an Alderman, Rush helped pass significant environmental protection, gun control and neighborhood development legislation.
Congressman Rush received an honorary doctorate degree from the Virginia University of Lynchburg and, in 2007, he was the proud recipient of an honorary doctorate degree in humane letters from Roosevelt University, Chicago. He is the pastor of Beloved Community Christian Church and has been married to his wife, Carolyn, for 30 years. They have six children and one son who was murdered in 1999.

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