WASHINGTON — Each year the first lady attends the State of the Union address with about two dozen guests who capture the news of the day and exemplify the president's message. This year's guests, for instance, include a Syrian refugee, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case last year legalizing same-sex marriage and an Air Force sergeant who helped take down a gunman on a train in France. Also on the guest list is Lydia Doza, 24, who is involved with the Obama administration's "Generation Indigenous" initiative, a program that aims to improve the lives and futures of young Native people.
As President Barack Obama prepares for his final update on the country he has led for seven years, it seems like a good time to revisit the Americans, ordinary and well known alike, who have represented his policies from the balcony of the House chamber.
2009: We Are Not Quitters
Fresh off his inauguration, Obama did not give a formal State of the Union address in 2009 — though his first speech to a joint session of Congress in February certainly looked like one. Several guests sat with Michelle Obama during the president's remarks, including Leonard Abess Jr., the chief executive of a Florida bank who quietly shared a $60 million bonus with his employees, and Ty'Sheoma Bethea, an eighth-grader who wrote to lawmakers asking for help for her struggling South Carolina school.
With the 2008 financial crisis still on people's minds, Americans were eager for reassurance as they grappled with the new realities of the economic downturn. Drawing on his campaign theme of hope, the president said Abess and Ty'Sheoma represented the extraordinary responses to the problems facing the United States. He called on members of Congress to follow their examples.
"We are not quitters," Obama said, quoting Ty'Sheoma.
2010: A Focus on Job Creation
During his first official State of the Union address, Obama did not mention by name any of the 23 guests sitting with Michelle Obama, forgoing an approach that presidents have employed from the campaign trail to the Oval Office to put a human face on their policies.
What he did mention were the challenges the guests and millions of other Americans were facing as the recession continued. Three people who benefited from the government's economic stimulus package — Don Karner, the head of an engineering company; Deborah Powell, a specialist working on a Native American housing project; and Trevor Yager, the founder of a public relations firm — listened from the first lady's box as the president praised the jobs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The speech came just a couple of months before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. Obama said he was pressing for change on behalf of the families who were "just one illness away from financial ruin" — a category that included Cindy Parker-Martinez, whose family was uninsured and deeply in debt after her husband spent six days in the hospital with pneumonia.
2011: A Tribute to Tucson Victims
Less than three weeks after the Tucson shooting — in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and 18 others were shot and six people died — the attendees commanded much of the attention for the State of the Union address. Daniel Hernandez, an intern credited with helping save Giffords, and the family of Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old who was killed in the shooting, joined Michelle Obama for the speech. And despite the fresh divide in Congress after voters gave control of the House to the Republicans, many lawmakers eschewed their normal seats to sit beside members of the other party, even saving a place for their critically wounded colleague.
But the thrust of the president's remarks was the slowly improving economy, as he discussed the importance of innovation to the nation's ability to compete in the global market. He told the story of Brandon Fisher, the founder of a Pennsylvania drilling company, who designed and executed a plan using his equipment to help free the 33 miners trapped underground in Chile for more than two months. And with opposition growing increasingly hostile to the president's health care law, Obama pointed to its benefits for small business owners like Jim Houser, who once struggled to pay the thousands of dollars necessary to insure the employees at his auto repair shop.
2012: The State of the Secretary
Declaring that "the state of our union is getting stronger," Obama focused on where progress was lagging — specifically, in the growing gap between the nation's rich and everyone else. He cited as an example Debbie Bosanek, an assistant to a particularly powerful and well-known executive, as she sat behind Michelle Obama.
"Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households," the president said. "Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary."
Most of the guests who sat with Michelle Obama hailed from states expected to prove critical to the president's coming re-election campaign. They included Bryan Ritterby and Jackie Bray, who trained at Michigan and North Carolina community colleges, respectively, after losing their jobs and were hired by new companies, testifying to the president's emphasis on retraining the workforce. (In the election, Obama would win Michigan but lose North Carolina, a state he had narrowly taken in 2008.)
2013: Calling for Action on Gun Violence
Obama entered his second term with a focus on the middle class, tying the populist theme of his recent inaugural address into his remarks on the state of the nation. The most tangible of his proposals was to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour — an idea he would push for the next two years against resistance from congressional Republicans.
Perhaps the most indelible moment came when Obama appealed to Congress to tighten the nation's gun laws two months after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama said he spoke for those in the chamber "whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence" — among them was one of the school's teachers, Kaitlin Roig. Also attending were Lt. Brian Murphy, the police officer who took 15 bullets when he confronted a gunman at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in a shooting that left six dead in August 2012, and Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel A. Pendleton Sr., whose 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya, was shot and killed a week after participating in the president's inaugural celebration.
"They deserve a vote," Obama said. "Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence — they deserve a simple vote."
2014: Going It Alone
With five years of political gridlock behind him, Obama used his 2014 State of the Union address to announce his intention to go it alone, outlining some initiatives that he could take without congressional approval in a "year of action." Among these was raising the minimum wage to $10.10 for federal contract workers, which he did the next month as Republicans continued to fight a broader increase. And using the case of John Soranno, who gave the workers at his Minneapolis pizza restaurant a raise, Obama urged other business owners not to wait for legislators to improve the lives of their employees.
In a dig at Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, Obama's guests also included Gov. Steven L. Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat who worked with the administration to expand health care under the president's law. And in a particularly emotional moment, attendees offered a standing ovation for Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, an Army Ranger whom Obama met before and then after a roadside bomb in Afghanistan left him partly paralyzed and brain-damaged.
2015: A Recovery at Home and Challenges Abroad
Just two years from the end of his presidency, Obama portrayed a country bouncing back from recession and ready to tackle the obstacles on the path to a robust middle class, including college affordability and tax reform. He talked about Rebekah and Ben Erler, a Minneapolis couple who had struggled and ultimately succeeded in supporting their young family after Ben Erler's construction work suffered during the financial crisis.
"They represent the millions who have worked hard and scrimped, and sacrificed and retooled," Obama said.
With the United States several months into its airstrike campaign against the Islamic State, Obama urged Congress to approve the use of force there. And a month after returning home after being held in Cuba for five years, American government contractor Alan P. Gross mouthed "thank you" as the president, who called for ending the trade embargo with the long-isolated nation, welcomed him back.