The Blog

Thanks to Isaac Carothers, citizens are losing faith in city government.

"I think after the Carothers issue, people are losing confidence in government," Mayor Daley said yesterday, according to the Tribune. "It broke the camel's back."

The camel was apparently in fine health before Carothers pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion last week, becoming the latest local elected official to run afoul of the feds.

The camel wasn't at all affected by Daley's complete co-opting of the City Council, his use of patronage workers to bully opponents and win elections, the Duff scandal, the Hired Truck scandal, the illegal hiring scandal, his support for the installation of Todd Stroger as county board president, the decline of city services, the festering murder problem, the deterioration of the CTA, the deterioration of the city parks, the privatization of public space, the privatization of the public schools, the sale of the parking meters, or the use of taxpayer money to subsidize profitable corporations while the rest of us are trying to pay our property taxes or rent.

Since Toni Preckwinkle won the Democratic nomination for county board president last week, I’ve heard lots of people saying it represents the return of the Washington coalition—a band of independent-minded African-Americans, Latinos, and whites who want to whip local government into shape.

There are a couple of problems with the comparison.

A few thoughts after witnessing Chicago-style democracy in action:

SEIZING VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY: Lisa Madigan wins!!! And so does Jesse White!!! Having no opponents helps.

THE RIGHT SHOWS ITS MIGHT: Or at least its impact on GOP primaries. For awhile last night it looked like so-called moderates might be making a comeback in the form of gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard and Senate candidate Mark Kirk. But then conservative Bill Brady slipped past Dillard by a few hundred votes (they’re still being counted) and Mark Kirk delivered a victory speech comparing his campaign with the American fight for democracy in WW I. It sounded like 2004 all over again.

About a year and a half ago I got a tip that the feds were looking into the dealings of west-side political boss Isaac Carothers. Not long after that I saw the burly alderman lumbering down a hallway behind City Council chambers and asked him if it was true.

What was interesting was that he didn't act surprised or angry. And of course he didn't say no.

"I haven't heard anything like that," he said.

Yesterday, of course, Carothers pleaded guilty in federal court to accepting bribes and failing to tell the tax man about some of the political favors he's received. He then resigned his seat in the City Council.

The Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate is ending pretty much as it began several months ago: Alexi Giannoulias appears to have a big lead in money and poll numbers but continues to be forced to field questions about how he contributed to the poor health of the bank his family owns.

What's changed is that he’s gotten a lot better at dodging those questions and convincing other local Dems that even with his problems he’s got the smell of a winner.

Maybe he really is ready to go to Washington.

Chicago’s parking meter lease agreement has quietly had an impact on the primaries this year.

People who work at the firms that made millions of bucks on the deal have given generously to a range of political candidates, as Ben Joravsky and I reported in this week’s issue. Among them are gubernatorial candidates from both parties, who if elected could weigh a proposal to privatize the state tollway system; Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who last year said she was investigating the city’s deal; the state Democratic Party, headed by Lisa’s pop, house speaker Michael Madigan; and a number of other Chicago-based pols who’ve courageously remained silent about the meter sell-off.

But two of the fiercest critics of the deal are also up for election.

I certainly won’t predict that esteemed Danny Davis—he of the booming baritone and liberal politics—is going to lose his bid for an eighth term in Congress.

But as Ben Joravsky and I write in this week’s Reader, times are changing in his west-side district.

Put another way: it's never good when the incumbent has to spend time defending his association with the Reverend Moon.

As I predicted, Alexi Giannoulias reacted to the latest bad news about Broadway Bank by issuing a statement noting he hasn't worked at the bank for almost four years and that it's not the only one out there struggling right now. It's the same way he's responded to questions about the bank since the beginning of the Senate campaign.

Meanwhile, one of his rivals, Chicago Urban League president Cheryle Jackson, is calling on Giannoulias to withdraw from the race. "The Giannoulias family’s money has directly bankrolled the state treasurer’s political career and that money has been made off of the backs of working families, small businesses, and taxpayers," she said in a prepared statement. "Giannoulias’s actions have made him unelectable, probably in the primary and certainly in the general. For the sake of Illinois families and for the good of the Democratic Party, I am calling on the treasurer to do the honorable thing and withdraw from this race today."

I don't see him complying with her request, but he will have to say more than he has so far—especially given the consent order [PDF] detailing the steps Broadway agreed to take in response to charges of "unsafe or unsound banking practices and violations of law, rule, or regulation alleged to have been committed in relation to weakness in capital, asset quality and liquidity."

The good news for leading Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is that regulators have not moved to close down Broadway Bank—which his family owns—though many observers have predicted they would since the bank's books started to sink in 2008 under the weight of bad loans.

But the bank's liberal lending policies and troubled health have been dogging Giannoulias's political career, and today he received news almost as bad as a shutdown: Crain's is reporting that the FDIC and Illinois banking officials have stepped in to place restrictions on Broadway. The bank must come up with more capital, stop paying out dividends—the Giannoulias family reaped millions of dollars from the institution even as its performance plummeted—and agree to additional oversight of its management.