{"id":518693,"date":"2010-04-06T18:28:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T22:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01347fb1a3d1970c"},"modified":"2010-04-06T18:28:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T22:28:43","slug":"durbin-unfair-to-blame-giannoulias-for-all-of-family-banks-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/518693","title":{"rendered":"Durbin: Unfair to blame Giannoulias for all of family bank’s woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Rick Pearson<\/em> at 5:27 p.m.
<\/br>
<\/br>Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin says it\u2019s not fair to hold Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias responsible for every decision at his family\u2019s troubled bank and contends voters are more concerned about jobs and the economy than the fate of the Broadway Bank.
<\/br>
<\/br>Still, Durbin, the state\u2019s senior senator and the chairman of Giannoulias\u2019 campaign, said it is fair to ask the Democratic nominee what responsibility he bears for the problems facing the bank. Giannoulias worked at his family bank prior to being elected state treasurer in November 2006. Federal regulators have asked family members who own the bank to recapitalize it or risk closure later this month.
<\/br>
<\/br>\u201cIf it\u2019s in trouble today, how much can you blame him?\u201d Durbin told the Tribune\u2019s editorial board this afternoon. \u201cWhat responsibility does he bear for it? I think that is a fair question and he\u2019s the only one who could answer that. I can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/br>Giannoulias\u2019 main opponent in the Senate race, five-term Republican North Shore Rep. Mark Kirk, has used the bank\u2019s problems to criticize Giannoulias’ qualifications.
<\/br><\/p>\n

Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in Senate leadership, said Giannoulias told him that he had nothing to do with \u201cover 90 percent\u201d of the loans made at Broadway Bank, where Giannoulias previously served as a loan officer. And Durbin said Giannoulias told him \u201che did not play a personal or major role\u201d in $20 million in loans given to two reputed organized crime figures during Giannoulias\u2019 tenure at the bank.<\/p>\n

Meeting with the Tribune editorial board last month, Giannoulias said he
\n accepted "my share of the responsibility" for the bank’s problems but
\ndid not discuss specific lending decisions, citing the privacy of bank
\ncustomers.<\/p>\n

Durbin said today that campaign focus groups show that instead of expressing concern about Broadway Bank, voters are asking, \u201cWhat about my job? What is going on in terms of the economy and moving forward?\u201d in the contest against Kirk.
<\/br>
<\/br>\u201cI think at the end of the day, the overriding issue is going to be the state of the economy and whether it\u2019s turned around \u2014 whether Mr. Kirk\u2019s position on economic issues is better for the state or Mr. Giannoulias\u2019,\u201d Durbin said.
<\/br><\/p>\n

Asked whether Giannoulias inflated his role at the bank in selling his banking experience to voters during the 2006 state treasurer campaign, Durbin said he didn\u2019t \u201cknow enough about banking\u201d to say where the Senate candidate fit on the pecking order at Broadway Bank.<\/p>\n

Durbin also said Giannoulias has done a good job as treasurer. Giannoulias came under fire after significant losses in the state’s Bright Start college savings fund used by parents. Durbin said that the fund that lost money was \u201cone of 20 funds there\u201d but \u201cby and large, I think he ran that program well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durbin also credited Giannoulias for getting two longstanding controversial hotel loan properties off the state\u2019s books and for refusing banking related contributions for his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brings more than that personal resume to the campaign. He brings a dramatically different position on major issues than Cong. Kirk,\u201d Durbin said. \u201cI would say to the voters of this state: You can have a lot more experience (with Kirk) and come up with an approach to things that doesn\u2019t work very well for us\u2014and I think that\u2019s the economic philosophy that brought us this recession.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Rick Pearson at 5:27 p.m.Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin says it\u2019s not fair to hold Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias responsible for every decision at his family\u2019s troubled bank and contends voters are more concerned about jobs and the economy than the fate of the Broadway Bank.Still, Durbin, the state\u2019s senior senator and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}