obama's time in the legislature initially was frustrating. Republicans controlled the state senate, and many of his black Democratic colleagues resented the hardball tactics he had employed against Palmer. But he adapted, developing cordial personal relations witn legislators of both parties and cultivating Senate Democratic leader Emil Jones, Jr., another African American senator from Chicago, as a mentor. Obama was able to get campaign finance reform and crime enacted even when his party was in the minority, and after 2002, when the Democrats won control of the Senate, he became a leading legislator on a wide range of issues, passing nearly 300 bills aimed at helping children, old people, labor unions, and the poor.