“I am thinking of calling IL to get Obama’s emails from when he was in office.....any one have any idea why the FOIA wouldn’t pertain to those also? What am I missing?”
These are being released under an Alaska state law that makes them public record. They were requested shortly after she was named VP candidate. It has taken this long for the state to comply. (I don’t know what federal or state requirements there are for Illinois State Senators or US Senators.)
Public bodies whose records are subject to the Act include legislative bodies. See 5 ILCS 140/2(a). It should be noted that records of officers and agencies of the General Assembly that pertain to the preparation of legislative documents are exempt from disclosure if those records are in the nature of preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated. 5 ILCS 140/7(1)(f).
It would be interesting to find who has asked for his records (because I'm sure someone has) and what the status of the request is.
I think one reason it took so long for Alaska to process the request was because Sarah and her staff supposedly used non-official e-mail accounts (like Yahoo) to discuss official business sometimes. The journalists wanted access to those as well but I don't think the state government had any jurisdiction over the records kept by outside providers. It took a lot of the state's time and money to argue it.