Progress Illinois

In an ABC-sponsored debate that focused more on tangential personal associations than policy issues, Barack Obama found himself consistently on the defensive last night in Philadelphia. Hillary Clinton threw the kitchen sink at her Illinois colleague in an effort to demonstrate that she's the more electable candidate.

While it's too early to know if the debate will have any affect on public opinion in Pennsylvania or elsewhere, the clear loser last night was ABC News. The Washington Post's Tom Shales referred to the moderators' "shoddy, despicable performances." Josh Marshall called their handling of the event "genuinely awful." And Time's Michael Grunwald summed it up well: "At a time of foreign wars, economic collapse and environmental peril, the cringe-worthy first half of the debate focused on such crucial matters as Senator Obama's comments about rural bitterness, his former pastor, an obscure sixties radical with whom he was allegedly 'friendly,' and the burning constitutional question of why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel."

In a major address on climate change yesterday, President Bush called on the United States to set policies that stabilize greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025. According to the Christian Science Monitor, "on Capitol Hill, where Congress is about to debate measures that would be far tougher than those the president outlined, responses to Bush's speech ranged from lukewarm to frosty."

The waiting game may finally be over. While the 11th Congressional District’s county party chairmen are scheduled to meet April 30 to pick a replacement for their original nominee, concrete magnate Martin Ozinga III has already taken formal steps to run, reports the Chicago Tribune. Harry Bond, the other contender, said his chances of winning the nomination "were slim."

While many of his constituents wrote checks to the IRS this week, Bill Foster tried to save them some cash on next year's taxes. In his first piece of legislation since winning a special election in the 14th Congressional District, Foster proposed allowing homeowners who do not itemize their taxes to deduct 30 percent of their property tax bill.

Tired of rising gun violence in his city, Mayor Richard Daley announced Wednesday that he would introduce an ordinance to guarantee jail time for anyone convicted of carrying an unregistered weapon within 1,000 feet of a school, park, courthouse, or public housing development.

More after the jump ...

In other gun news, the Illinois House narrowly voted down an amendment to the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act that would have required people wanting to sell or give guns to someone else to go to a licensed gun dealer and have a background check done.

After a decade of inaction, the Chicago Housing Authority will open its waiting list for the Section 8 voucher program. More than 200,000 Chicagoans are expected to apply for the coveted vouchers that subsidize private market rentals for the holder and a lottery will decide which 40,000 win a spot in May.