Jack Enlow was a Democratic senator from Illinois who was the ranking member of authorizing subcommittee in the Senate Committee on Appropriations. He publicly supported the construction of a Superconducting Supercollider because it would be built in Illinois, but he had actually placed the bill on anonymous hold because the project had no practical application.
He attended First Lady Abigail Bartlet's birthday party with his wife. Sam Seaborn realized he was the one who had placed the anonymous hold and threatened to have all infrastructure projects earmarked for Illinois placed on anonymous hold unless he came to speak with Dr. Dalton Millgate.
Sam believed Enlow's objection was that the project would eat up money that could be spent on pork barrel he preferred. Enlow was offended, but Sam apologized. Millgate convinced Enlow that many scientific achievements were made with no practical goal in mind but ended up having them anyway, and the senator agreed to remove his anonymous hold. He was unconvinced the project would make it out of committee, however.
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