Ms. Jarrett Goes To Washington

Back in Chicago she joined the law firm Ballard, Shepard and Pole, Ltd., then moved on to a real estate practice at Sonnenschein, Carlin, Nath and Rosenthal. But the life of a corporate lawyer was not for her. “She just wasn’t happy,” said her friend and co-worker Susan Sher. “She wanted to do public service.”

Her timing couldn’t have been better. Harold Washington had become the city’s first African-American mayor and Jarrett wanted to be part of his administration. Judd Miner, then Washington’s Corporation Counsel, recruited Jarrett to the city’s law department. A few years later, after he’d returned to his law firm, Miner would make another hiring coup, recruiting the president of the Harvard Law Review, Barack Obama. Miner, in fact, was one of Obama’s earliest connections to an assortment of wealthy Jewish and African-American Chicago Democrats who would assist him at every stage of his political career.

After Harold Washington’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1987, Jarrett stayed on in City Hall, rising under Mayor Richard M. Daley to Deputy Chief of Staff, then Commissioner of Planning and Development. Her buddy, Susan Sher, became the Corporation Counsel; both of their kids went to the Lab School (where the Obama children were enrolled) and both served stints on the Lab School Board.

Jarrett’s daughter Laura was the product of her five-year marriage with Dr. William Jarrett, who died in 1988 a few years after they were divorced. Dr. Jarrett came from a well-known Chicago family: His father was Vernon Jarrett, the late, agenda-setting Chicago Sun-Times columnist.

Daley’s management style fostered conflict and Jarrett left City Hall in 1995 caught in some cross fire. As long-time Chicago Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman wrote, “Daley denied that Jarrett had been forced out and sought to play down the pressure of developers who complained that projects languished too long in her department.”

She found the perfect place to land at Chicago’s Habitat Company, a real estate development firm chaired by Daniel Levin, cousin of two Michigan brothers in Congress: Sander Levin in the House, Carl Levin in the Senate.

Activist public affairs consultant with close ties to City Hall Marilyn Katz introduced Jarrett to Levin, and the granddaughter of Robert Taylor became executive vice-president of the company that was the court appointed receiver for the CHA’s scattered site housing. She would become Habitat president on Jan. 31, 2007.

Katz and Bettylu Saltzman would go on, a few years later, to organize the October 2002 rally at the Federal Plaza in the Loop where Obama made his now famous speech opposing the Iraq war. (Saltzman, a supporter of Obama from his start, is a Chicago doyenne, the daughter of the late real estate mogul Philip Klutznick, who was President Carter’s Secretary of Commerce.)

Daley wouldn’t let go of Jarrett, though. On the day she announced her departure from City Hall, Daley tapped her as the highly visible Chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority, which she served until 2003.

Jarrett’s close ties to the Daley camp continued as she became more involved in Obama’s political operation. Daley named her to Chicago’s 2016 Olympic Committee. She was finance chair for Obama’s 2004 senate campaign and treasurer of his HOPEFUND political action committee created in 2005. She joined the boards of the Museum of Science and Industry (she was a tour guide there as a kid), the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, USG Corporation, Navigant Consulting and RREEF America II. She chaired the Chicago Stock Exchange.

She was also deepening involvement with the University of Chicago, ground zero for so many of the interlocking relationships that would come together to help propel Obama to the White House. Jarrett joined the U of C Board in 2001 and became chair of the Medical Center Board in 2006. Michelle Obama, who started working at the U of C in 1996, moved over to the Medical Center in 2002, promoted to vice-president for community and external affairs in 2005.

What makes Jarrett unusual in the Obama world is that she is a friend and confidant of both Michelle and Barack. At first Jarrett had an informal campaign role, but then she stepped up her activity last September, formalizing her role as advisor and emissary to special interest groups and fund-raising surrogate.

When I saw Jarrett on Election Day, she seemed excited that her daughter, now 23 and a second year law student at Harvard, was at her side on the historic day. Jarrett and daughter flew on the Obama campaign plane for the short trip from Chicago’s Midway Airport to Indianapolis, where Obama did phone banking from a union hall. Back at Midway, I saw Obama’s Chicago pals deplane—the Jarrett women in sunglasses. Soon, Jarrett will be flying with Obama on Air Force One.

Lynn Sweet is the Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief. Visit her blog.