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Alexi Giannoulias
Quick Hit
by Adam Doster
11:32am
Wed Jul 28, 2010

Giannoulias Makes Filibuster Reform A Priority

On separate occasions earlier this year, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias informed voters that he supported changing the rules of the U.S. Senate to rein in the ever-increasing use of the filibuster. "The process has become a complete mess," he said at a Chicago event in May.  Giannoulias got more specific in a DailyKos entry yesterday, coming out in favor of Sen. Tom Udall's (D-NM) "constitutional option" proposal. Here's a video from the campaign in which the candidate explains why the anti-majoritarian requirement needs fixing:

While momentum for filibuster reform is growing in Washington, a handful of incumbent Democrats told The Hill today they had no interest in lowering the 60-vote bar necessary to end debate on legislation. (OpenLeft's updated whip count is here.) That means a Giannoulias victory in November could be crucial if a bloc of senators attempt to modify Senate procedure at the beginning of the next Congress in January.

Quick Hit
by Aricka Flowers
4:38pm
Mon Jul 12, 2010

Another Watchdog Debunks Kirk's Ad Claims

Politifact isn't the only political watchdog taking GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk to task for stretching the truth in his campaign ads.

On Friday, Factcheck.org criticized a series of statements Kirk's camp used in two spots released in late June. Many of the fibs identified by the group should be familiar to Progress Illinois readers: Researchers found that Kirk exaggerated his efforts to protect Lake Michigan from BP pollution, falsely asserted that an Alexi Giannoulias aide is a former "BP lobbyist," and misidentified the state treasurer as the chief culprit in the Bright Start college savings controversy. Factcheck also complicated the claim that Giannoulias supports "higher energy taxes," pointing out that he actually backs a (responsible) cap-and-trade system, which Kirk himself once supported. Finally, in its most detailed breakdown, Factcheck said the North Shore Republican "goes too far in saying that Giannoulias 'made' loans to 'convicted mobsters.'"

Read their entire analysis here.

Quick Hit
by Josh Kalven
9:02am
Fri Jul 9, 2010

Politifact Whacks Kirk For "BP Lobbyist" Claims

The Pulitzer Prize-winning website Politifact waded into Illinois' U.S. Senate race this week and found that GOP nominee Mark Kirk has been stretching the truth.  Specifically, they highlighted his campaign's claim in a recent ad that Giannoulias aide Endy Zemenides "was a longtime BP lobbyist" as "barely true." 

The real story here is that Zemenides was previously a registered lobbyist for a BP subsidiary that focused on setting up gas stations in the Chicago area.  Politifact concluded: "It's one thing to be an attorney handling landscaping and zoning issues for a company developing retail gas stations; quite another to lobby for lax federal legislation on deepwater oil drilling. The Kirk ad makes too much of very little."

The site also examined two separate ads from the Kirk and Giannoulias campaigns.  See what they found here.