More news from the 5th Congressional District race ...

Sara Feigenholtz has a new ad out:

The release of the ad coincides with Feigenholtz's pledge today to push congressional legislation requiring health insurance providers to cover mammograms for women over 40. From their press release:

State Representative Sara Feigenholtz, a candidate to replace Rahm Emanuel in Illinois’ fifth congressional district, pledged today that in Congress she will fight to pass federal legislation requiring insurance companies to cover routine, annual mammograms for all women 40 and over. As the leading voice on health care expansion and reform in Springfield, Sara successfully fought to require insurance companies to cover routine mammograms for women 40 and over in Illinois.

We noted about a week go that the national progressive organization Democracy for America was conducting an online poll to help decide who it would back in the 5th Congressional District.  Today, DFA announced that it had endorsed Tom Geoghegan.  From their press release:

Last week, we asked DFA members in Illinois to choose, so that our nationwide membership can get behind one candidate and help deliver victory. What we found is that DFA members in the 5th district are split. After the first vote count, two candidates tied for the top spot: Mike Quigley and Tom Geoghegan.

Both candidates are solid progressives who could deliver real results in Congress. But voters can't vote for both of them on Election Day, they will have to choose just one. So we went to the tie-breaker and we have a clear winner.

Tom Geoghegan is the DFA-List endorsed progressive for Congress.

The Geoghegan campaign describes DFA's backing as "a key endorsement in this race, bringing donations from progressives and providing volunteers to participate in door-to-door, grassroots outreach." 

Geoghegan also rolled out another bold policy proposal this morning, calling on the federal government to "take over Bank of America, Citi, and any other banks that are seriously impaired":

“The government must step in so that bad assets can be written off, insolvent institutions closed, and healthy institutions can be recapitalized and re-privatized. Receivership is a necessary step forward to righting our financial system and moving toward economic recovery,” said Geoghegan.

Meanwhile, the pre-primary campaign finance reports have begun to surface on the FEC website.  At the time this item was published, both John Fritchey and Charlie Wheelan's filing were available.  Fritchey reported raising $454,000 between January 1 and February 11, while Wheelan disclosed $121,000 in contributions during the same period.  Once we've seen the reports from Feigenholtz, Geoghegan, and Quigley, we'll update our IL-5 fundraising table.

Full disclosure: The SEIU Illinois Council -- which is the sole sponsor of Progress Illinois -- has endorsed Sara Feigenholtz in the 5th Congressional District race.  Progress Illinois itself will not be endorsing any candidate in this contest.