* The 5th Congressional District primary election is three weeks from today, yet the paucity of media coverage is quite puzzling to me. I mean, we’re talking about a major open seat battle featuring all sorts of colorful characters and lots of Democratic and union and other infighting, yet there’s almost nothing for the average voter to read.
The Tribune did an online piece about Rep. Sara Feigenholtz missing the ethics committee vote last week, but I don’t think the story ever actually made it into the paper. The story I highlighted yesterday about Rep. John Fritchey slamming Rep. Feigenoltz was buried deep in the Sun-Times. The CS-T had a nice little feature on Mike Quigley this week, but there wasn’t much news in it. Fox Chicago ran a couple of stories a while back on Feigenholtz’s poll causing controversy. But there hasn’t been much else.
The best coverage by far has been online. Prairie State Blue has done a quite respectable job of putting things together, including an interesting piece by Bored Now today. Progress Illinois has a good roundup today and they’ve done some reportage as well. Gapers Block has a fun piece today about the candidates using Twitter.
Take all of those blogs, add it to this one and a relative tiny number of 5th District voters are getting any sort of information on a regular basis about this campaign.
It would be nice to see the Chicago media, which supposedly loves to cover politics, finally get engaged here. The clock is ticking.
* On to the news. As expected, SEIU endorsed Rep. Feigenholtz today. From a press release…
“Sara Feigenholtz will help President Barack Obama get this nation’s economy going again and that means creating jobs,” said SEIU Illinois Council President Thomas Balanoff. “Her get-things-done reputation means working families will have the right person, at the right time, fighting for their needs in Washington. She knows this recovery must begin in our neighborhoods,” he added.
* There was a bit of a dustup in comments yesterday between an SEIU official and others over just how many union members each side has in the district. The Illinois AFL-CIO has endorsed Rep. Fritchey.
The State Fed won’t release individual union membership totals by district, but they claim there are about 38,000 union members in the 5th CD, and about 24,000 of those are registered to vote. Both those numbers are probably understated because the AFL-CIO apparently has lower totals for SEIU than the union itself claims. Jerry Morrison of SEIU wrote on the blog yesterday that his union has 8,000 members in the district. He didn’t say how many of them were registered voters, however..
So, figure maybe about 40,000 or so union members overall, with SEIU having 8,000 of them. I sent Morrison an e-mail a bit ago asking for his registered voters total. I’ll pass his answer along if I hear back from him. Also, there are about 6,000 teachers union members in that district and almost all are registered voters.
I hope this clears up at least some of the confusion.
…Adding… Morrison just called and said he has 8,000 registered voters in the district.
* Meanwhile, another day, another whack on Feigenholtz. From a press release…
Mike Quigley’s campaign is calling today on state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz to return money that she collected at a downtown fundraiser last week— an event which she attended instead of voting on a bill to reform state government in the wake of the Blagojevich scandal.
Feigenholtz was the only member of the Illinois House to skip the vote last Thursday on SJR 1, a bill to create a new panel of lawmakers who will work with Gov. Pat Quinn “to restore integrity to State government.” Every other member of the state House voted on the bill.
Instead of carrying out her legislative duties in Springfield, the Chicago Tribune reported that Feigenholtz chose to attend a campaign fundraiser that same afternoon. (An invitation to the event shows that it was held at the offices of a downtown firm that lobbies the State of Illinois on behalf of its clients).
Today, the Quigley campaign urged Feigenholtz to give the money back. […]
Bowen added that, in addition to answering whether she will return the money raised at last Thursday’s fundraiser, Feigenholtz should also explain her decision to contribute $5,000 to Rod Blagojevich in June 2006, a contribution nearly a year after Blagojevich’s campaign, key fundraisers and administration had been identified in the media as targets of federal investigations.
Considering the lack of coverage, I’m not sure anyone else will ever see that creative slam.
* Other stuff…
* Fritchey Woos Bloggers in Illinois 5th CD Special Election
* Race to fill congressional seat draws wide attention