One of the races that we've been watching this winter is the Democratic Primary in the 3rd Congressional District. Incumbent Dan Lipinski is hoping voters will send him back to D.C. for a third term, but he's facing a tough challenge from Mark Pera, an assistant county prosecutor from Western Springs. That challenge may have gotten a little tougher yesterday when Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool endorsed Pera. If you don't remember the 2004 general......

Long-time Republican Congressman Henry Hyde died early this morning at Rush University Medical Center. He was 83. Hyde served 32 years in the House before retiring at the end of last session, and he was recently awarded a Medal of Freedom. He's best known for his role as the chairman of the judiciary committee during the Clinton impeachment proceedings and for the Hyde Amendment, which bans Medicaid from funding abortions except in cases of rape,......

It was twenty years ago today that Mayor Harold Washington collapsed at his desk in City Hall. He died of a massive heart attack. In 1983, Washington surprised Chicago by winning the Democratic Primary for Mayor. He won with 36% of the vote, beating out incumbent Mayor Jane M. Byrne and Richard M. Daley. In the April 1983 general election, Washington received 52% of the vote to become Chicago’s first black mayor, trumping Bernard Epton......

Loyola University Medical Center started testing all incoming patients for that drug-resistant staph germ that's been going around. Our version of a spa is where George Ryan's going to prison. Jesse Jackson Jr. throws a "tea party" style photo op, dumping bottled water in the Chicago River. Big talk for a man who opted not to run against His Elective Majesty for Mayor. Does El Cubanito make the best Cuban sandwich in town? You'll......

Jill Morgenthaler, Blagojevich's deputy chief of staff for public safety and homeland security tendered her resignation Tuesday, effective November 1. She apparently called Rich Miller to confirm speculation that she will challenge freshman 6th District congressman Peter Roskam next year. The retired Army Colonel and former psy-ops specialist has been the topic of speculation for while, circulating ballot access petitions and raising money. Unfortunately for Morganthaler (and Democrats in the 6th), she comes with a......

Of the grassroots congressional campaigns this season, Mark Pera's race to unseat 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski is among the more notable. According to the Pera campaign, they out-raised Congressman Dan Lipinski during the 3rd quarter, $100,000 to $75,000. Even more telling was where the money came from: Pera's nearly 850 contributions came from individual donors, while just one of Lipinski's 74 contributions was from inside the district ($100 from a single contributor in Brookfield).......

Jeffrey Rush, son of Congressman Bobby Rush, was fired from his job as an assistant supervisor of security at the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center following allegations that he had sex with two female inmates. Fox Valley ATC is Level 8 security — that's the least severe, on a scale from 1 (maximum) to 8 (transitional), and it's not uncommon for inmates to leave the facility for work, counseling, school, or as a reward for......

Jerry Weller's announcement that he is retiring from Congress at the end of this term should have been a simple political narrative. Pol marries daughter of ex-Guatemalan dictator, makes what look like some questionable land deals in Central America, and gets subpoenaed in the case against a defense contractor who is accused of bribing another congressman. Then he announces that he won't seek another term so he can spend more time with the family. Yawn.......

It's going to be gorgeous this weekend but might rain tonight, so grab your umbrella before heading out. Just in case. The The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 1 million cribs today after a Trib investigation linked the cribs to the deaths of three children. Congressman Jerry Weller (R-Morris) won't be running for an eighth term because he wants to spend more time with his family. Not because he's been named one of the......

Nearly two weeks after Congressman Luis Gutierrez announced that he will, indeed, seek a ninth term in Congress (after announcing that he wouldn't run again), First Ward Alderman Manny Flores has announced that he won't seek the congressional seat. "I did this of my own accord. He's my friend," Flores told the Sun-Times, adding that Gutierrez didn't try to persuade him. Of course, Gutierrez's decision shouldn't be too shocking. The conventional wisdom is that if......

After a veritable outpouring of support expressed through an open letter, Fourth District Congressman Luis Gutiérrez announced that he would seek a 9th term in congress. “The situation is going to get worse for the immigrant community, there’ll be more deportations and more separation of families and more damage to our community,” Gutierrez said yesterday. “I want to come back to see if a Democrat-controlled Congress with a president called Barack Obama can bring an......

We've been having some fun here with this series of photos featuring Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. practicing martial arts. After Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown wrote about the photos in today's paper, they're now officially more than an Internet phenomenon. The photos make a nice sidebar to an argument last week between Jackson and Nebraska's Congressman Lee Terry after a debate on an agriculture appropriations bill was tabled for the day. Name calling ensued, prompting Terry......

While most of the city was partying down at Lollapalooza this weekend, a different type of party was going on just a few blocks south of Grant Park: YearlyKos, the annual convention hosted by DailyKos, the netroots weblog started by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, and filled with content, news and views by a motley crew of bloggers from around the nation (including Dick Durbin!). Saturday was a big day for the bloggers by the lake, with......

Last week we clued you in to BP's plans to increase the levels of ammonia and sludge thhey are discharging into Lake Michigan from their Whiting, IN refinery. Responding to the wave of local bad press the company got, BP ran full page ads in newspapers, letters to the editor, and even blog advertising, including here on Chicagoist. Yesterday the Chicago Tribune ran with a front page headline detailing the flogging that BP took on......

Calling the sentence imposed on Lewis "Scooter" Libby "harsh" and "excessive," George W. Bush commuted the 30-month sentence on Monday. Not quite the full pardon that some conservatives wanted — he still has to pay a quarter million dollar fine and serve 2 years probation for lying under oath — it certainly left Bush open to criticism, from both sides of the congressional aisle. “He was indicted by a grand jury and convicted beyond the......

Friday night, Chicagoist sat in the Kroc University Theater of the Adler Planetarium to hear Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" presentation given by someone with PhD style credibility, Dr. James Sweitzer. The majority of the presentation had the same slickness of Gore's documentary without the cut scenes of impending doom (though the excessive rumbling of traffic above the theater was slightly ominous). However, in lieu of soliloquies about being a boy on a farm,......

April, the cruelest month, brings with it north-side commuters’ personal hell. But delays on the CTA’s red, brown, purple and blue lines aren’t just chewing up your time and stoking our comments sections for the next couple years. They’re a threat to the local theater industry, specifically that massive cluster of storefronts barely a stone’s throw from the el tracks. Through early 2009, making that 7:00 curtain may involve unnecessary drama. But if you make......

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend... Gothamist spent the week writing about New Yorkers behaving badly: at the post office, at the Garden, and at the fertility clinic. Calvin Klein may not be misbehaving, but he's just a little dirty, and in a completely different way than some NYC kitchens. SFist had its share of misbehave-rs, too, like......

On Monday, Republican Congressman Tim Walberg stated in a radio interview that he has gathered from his discussion with American troops returning from Iraq that "80 to 85 percent, in a conservative fashion, of the country is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities. That's an encouraging sign." Chicago and Detroit may have their problems, but surely it is a bit far reaching to......

While the rest of the city was preparing to get sauced this past weekend, and the media was running after Conrad Black, DNC Chairman Howard Dean made a trip to Chicago for a series of fund raisers last week. And Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) took the opportunity to make some connections, working the Howard Dean crowd for volunteers. He also went ahead and filed the paperwork to form a congressional campaign committee. He also held......

The House on Thursday passed the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill designed to make the difficult process of forming a union easier for workers. The legislation, passed by a vote of 241-185, largely along party lines, was supported by nearly all of Illinois' Democratic delegation, and both senators Durbin and Obama have promised to guide this bill through the Senate. Barack Obama voiced his support of the bill, although he acknowledged that getting it......

Yesterday we gave you a preview of who might be running for president in the Democratic camp. Today we turn our focus to the right, looking at the Republican side of the primaries. Since Dick Cheney isn't going to seek the presidency this time around, the field is wide open for any Republican to join the fray, hoping that his agenda is the one that will resonate most with conservative voters. And not unlike the......

Here we are, less than two years away from the next contest for the White House. This time next year, hopefuls, shoo-ins, and also-rans will be in a mad dash around the country, having pancakes in New Hampshire, talking milk prices and manufacturing in Iowa, and hoping to make it to Super Tuesday. On the Democratic side of the coin, more than a few people have already thrown their hats into the ring, and some......

If you're in the know (like Chicagoist here), you might have heard the blogosphere blowing up yesterday amidst rumors that Jerry Weller was the next local politico to go down in the Congressional Pages sex scandal. But now the latsest (unofficial) word out of Illinois' 11th District is that a report that a page had been hit on by a Congressman had spun wildly out of control in the overheated election coverage. It got so......

The fallout from Rep. Mark Foley's resignation from Congress over revelations that he loves the young pageboys has widened to include a number of Illinois politicians. Dick Durbin has been around to wring his hands, although we're sure he'll apologize for it later, and Springfield Rep. John Shimkus, chairman of the House Page Board, is coming off looking rather clueless. But the big local name making the headlines is House Speaker Dennis Hastert, because one......

It must be something in the air. Look beyond the explosion of neighborhood Summer Fests, “Taste Ofs”, and nationally recognized rock smorgasbords, and you’ll find… still more festivals. Taking a cue from music promoters, local theaters know you’re excited to spend hours upon hours being entertained along some kind of theme. Festivals grab attention, and these festivals grabbed ours: Darknight Theatrical Productions pays tribute to Twilight Zone master Rod Serling, presenting three original one-acts inspired......

It seems as though not a week goes by without an alderman doing or saying something that makes Chicago look like just another parochial, hick town. If they're not banning foie gras, or passing a smoking ban that allows bars a time frame for compliance that more resembles an exit strategy from Iraq, then they're feuding with each other on the Council floor, passing salary increases for themselves, and getting caught in the occasional compromising......

The Rebirth of Englewood Community Development Corporation is a not-for-profit organization that was founded by US Congressman Bobby Rush to encourage community and economic development in the Englewood neighborhood. Back in 2003, telecom giant SBC’s foundation* gave a $1 million grant to the organization to help establish the Bobby L. Rush Center for Community Technology, which would allow training and business development for the community. It all sounds so great, right? An example of corporate......

That cold wind that took over the Chicago area yesterday afternoon? It was none other than Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney was in the suburbs yesterday to raise money for Peter Roskam, the 6th District Republican candidate for Congress. Roskam will face either Tammy Duckworth, Christine Cegelis, or Lindy Scott in the November election. The Democratic battle has been hard fought and well publicized nationwide, while Roskam is running unopposed in the Republican primary. The......

In the race for the Democratic nomination for County President, the bad blood between County Commissioner Forrest Claypool and current President John Stroger probably won’t be improving anytime soon. Both Claypool and Stroger appeared on NBC 5’s City Desk with Dick Kay yesterday morning. Unfortunately, Stroger is not keen on debates, so they did not appear together. Wait, maybe that’s a good thing. At this point we wouldn’t be surprised to see a meet......