“Sean Casten won a crowded primary and was successful in energizing the grassroots, which is critical as he heads into this general election fight,” said DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján. “Sean’s message of holding Republicans accountable for their attacks on the environment, health care and the GOP tax scam resonated with hardworking families across Illinois 6th Congressional District. Sean’s record of creating jobs and bringing people together to solve problems provides a strong contrast, and he is in a great position to win in November.”
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To: Interested Parties
From: Jacob Peters, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: March 21, 2018
RE: The Case Against Rep. Peter Roskam
Rep. Peter Roskam wrote and helped pass the GOP tax scam, and he considers it his defining achievement. We agree, because it will likely be one of the central issues in the political campaign that ends his career in Congress.
Roskam already faced an uphill climb to re-election as an out-of-touch member of Washington Republican leadership running in a rapidly-changing, suburban district that voted for Secretary Hillary Clinton by seven percentage points. Roskam likes to say that he represents the late Rep. Henry Hyde’s old district, but the district has changed under Roskam’s feet, and this isn’t the same district Rep. Hyde won – not even close.
Even as the ground shifts underneath him, Roskam has stayed the course, eagerly voting with his party instead of his district. First, he supported the Republican health care bill despite a massive backlash in his district, and then he served as a chief architect of the GOP tax scam that hammers his suburban constituents. In a year when swing voters will be asking Republicans like Peter Roskam what they have done for their local communities, it doesn’t bode well for Roskam that he has voted more than 90 percent of the time with Paul Ryan and the Republicans and wrote a plan to raise his constituents’ taxes.
Sean Casten is a scientist, engineer, and clean energy entrepreneur who has earned the respect of environmentalists and fellow job-creators. Casten made it clear that he is running not only to hold Peter Roskam accountable for his vote to repeal health care and role in the GOP tax scam, but also to invest in working families to improve education, create jobs, and expand economic opportunity. That message of putting working families ahead of extreme partisan politics is a far better fit for the district than what Roskam has to offer.
Just this morning, non-partisan election forecasters at Inside Elections moved their rating of the race in favor of Casten from Lean Republican to just Tilt Republican. Sean Casten is ready to send Peter Roskam into an early retirement, which shouldn’t be too tough on him, since last year he began double dipping into a $37,452 annual pension from the State of Illinois.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
Inside Elections: Illinois Primaries: Ratings Changes in Two Races
“The winner will face GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in a suburban Chicago district full of voters who could punish the congressman in their upheaval against President Trump. Clinton won the seat 50-43 percent in 2016. Roskam survived the 2006 Democratic wave by winning a competitive open seat against Tammy Duckworth. This will be a new challenge for the congressman under the current electoral conditions. Rating: Move from Lean Republican to Tilt Republican.” [03/21/2018]
“Roskam has been a party loyalist since 2006, narrowly losing a bid for GOP whip in 2014 and casting conservative votes. But his suburban Chicago district has moved away from the GOP so fast that Democrats are now wishing they hadn’t protected him in their 2012 gerrymander. In 2016, Clinton won this seat 50 percent to 43 percent. Only eight House Republicans represent a seat Trump lost by more. Defeating Roskam will be Chicago Democrats’ top priority.” [Cook Political Report, 11/17/2017]
Crain’s Chicago Business: Roskam lauds GOP tax plan that could hit thousands of constituents
The Illinois congressman who’s one of the major authors of the big new GOP tax plan says he’s solidly behind it and intends to vote to enact it—even though local tax authorities say tens of thousands of homeowners in his district would be affected by a new cap on property-tax deductions, potentially cutting into and maybe eliminating any overall tax cut they would enjoy under the rewritten rules. [11/02/2017]
Real Clear Politics: Roskam at the Center of Political Fight Over Taxes [11/13/2017]
Rep. Peter Roskam: A Dinosaur Who Doesn’t See the Asteroid Coming
Washington Insider Out of Place in a Swing District
Roskam regularly appears at Washington Republican leadership press conferences, has jumped from one subcommittee chairmanship to another, and at one point even ran for the #3 job in the House. Ambition like that takes loyalty – Roskam votes with Speaker Ryan 93% of the time and President Trump 94% of the time.
A creature of Washington, D.C., Roskam is out of place in his competitive, suburban district. That’s probably why he has only held one town hall in nearly a decade in office, and backtracked on an idea to hold a town hall over the tax bill that he himself quarterbacked through the House. Not to mention that Roskam – who wants to raise the retirement age for Medicare and Social Security – began collecting a $37,452 annual pension from the State of Illinois, electing to draw from the state’s troubled pension system (Roskam himself has called it a “fiscal basket case”) on top of his $174,000 congressional salary. That’s not the behavior of someone in touch with the people he represents.
Crash Landed Tax Bill on his Own District
Rep. Peter Roskam was a chief architect of a tax bill that independent experts, local press, IL-06 constituents, and the Republican Governor of Illinois harshly criticized for how it would effect taxpayers in Illinois.
His district was devastatingly similar to that of Republicans who voted against the bill, but Roskam didn’t just support the bill, he helped write it. Roskam broke promise after promise while writing the bill, failing to make it “revenue neutral,” to include reforms that would allow Americans to file taxes on a postcard, or to find a “soft landing” for the State and Local Tax Deduction that nearly half of Roskam’s constituents claimed for about $5 billion in federal tax relief. The biggest winner from Roskam’s tax bill: his special interest donors.
Ignored Grassroots Backlash to Health Care
Roskam voted for a health care bill that was known to be not just damaging to his district – 30,000 people would have lost their health care and seen their premiums go up – but also deeply unpopular. Roskam became one of a number of Republicans mocked for leaving a meeting through a back door in order to avoid hundreds of people protesting him for his stance on health care, and that’s before he even voted for the Republican repeal bill. He ignored that backlash, doubled down on his support for the bill, and backed the tax bill that repealed a core pillar of the Affordable Care Act, which a recent study found will increase premiums in Illinois by 19%.
THE PATH TO VICTORY
Sean Casten has emerged from one of the most crowded and energetic primaries in the country by outspending the field and running on a strong message that resonates with voters in this suburban district. Casten’s profile as an entrepreneur and job creator will be an even greater asset in the general election in a changing district where voters are looking for independent problem solvers. It will also provide a clear contrast to an extreme career politician like Roskam who has called climate change “junk science” and is double-dipping into the state’s pension fund.
Peter Roskam trails a generic Democratic opponent by ten percentage points, 51-41, according to a public poll from November. The same poll found that just 34% of voters approved of the job Roskam was doing, which is actually worse than President Trump’s 38% approval rating. That’s a big hill to climb for anyone, but especially for a career politician like Roskam who is well-known, well-defined, and has aligned himself entirely with Washington Republicans’ toxic agenda.
Moreover, IL-06 is a textbook example of a district trending away from Republicans. It is an affluent, well-educated district that shifted from Romney +8 to Clinton +7 and is more than 70% suburban. If special elections in 2017 taught us one thing, it was that these shifts in the suburbs aren’t a blip, they are a trend that spells trouble for incumbents like Peter Roskam. Roskam can no longer separate himself from the toxicity of the Trump White House and Paul Ryan’s Congress. Facing a candidate like Sean Casten who has the message and resources to hold him accountable for his record while appealing to new Democratic voters, Peter Roskam is in for the fight of his career.