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.”