Editorial: More US House primary endorsements: Casten, Grasso, Collins, Krishnamoorthi, Dargis

This is the third installment of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for U.S. House primary races.

6th District

Democratic U.S. Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman know how to beat entrenched incumbents. They’ve done it before. In 2018, Casten ousted Republican Peter Roskam from the 6th District seat, a job that the Wheaton congressman had held for six terms. In 2020, Newman relied on a staunchly progressive agenda to boot fellow Democrat and longtime 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski, an office he had held since 2005.

Now Casten and Newman are feisty incumbents facing each other. Casten’s the 6th District incumbent in the Democratic primary, and Newman opted to run in this district after Illinois Democrats remapped her out of her own 3rd District and into fellow Democratic progressive Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s 4th District. Newman felt she had a better chance in the 6th. Members of Congress don’t have to live inside their districts, though Newman has said she will move into the 6th if she wins.

Either Casten or Newman will be out of a job, and those all-or-nothing stakes have given the campaign a vibe that’s less about issues and more about how much mud one candidate can heave at the other. We’re less interested in campaign point-scoring, and focused more on who can best represent this politically variegated district at a time when the nation faces so many crises — at home and abroad.

Though Casten’s and Newman’s voting records mirror each other on many fronts, there’s a fundamental difference between them. Newman is an unabashed progressive and Casten is a moderate. Newman supports universal health care through Medicare for All. Casten also backs universal health care, but not if it means wiping out the role of the private sector.

“As someone with 20 years in the private sector, I have a deep and abiding faith in the ability of free markets to solve problems, and a deep and abiding faith in the need for government regulation to ensure we preserve free and fair markets,” Casten told us.

We’re also troubled by the fact that Newman is the subject of an ongoing probe by the House Ethics Committee into allegations that she offered Chicago college professor Iymen Chehade a job as a foreign policy adviser on her House staff in exchange for his agreement to not run against her in 2020. Chehade didn’t get the job, and he sued Newman. The case was settled, and now Chehade, who is running in the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District, is a foreign policy analyst for Newman’s campaign.

Also on the ballot is Charles Hughes, a former precinct worker for Lipinski in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Casten and Newman are on the same side of many issues — they’re both pro-choice, they both back responsible gun control, and they both want to ensure everyone has access to health care. But Casten understands that throwing mountains of money at every problem is the wrong way to govern. His measured, reasoned approach toward governance is why our endorsement goes to Casten.

The Republican primary for the 6th District features six candidates. Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso says, in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, he’s open to a frank discussion on gun control. He doesn’t think teens should have access to assault-style rifles, and suggests use of such weapons could be confined to gun clubs. “Background checks should also be part of the discussion,” he told us. “I am willing to do what we have to do to keep our children safe.”

Conversely, one of his opponents, Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau, toes the NRA line. Speaking about Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old shooter in Uvalde, Pekau told us, “If in fact there was no history, if he was completely law-abiding, what’s going to solve that particular problem — someone that just snapped?” We think there’s a lot more that can be done, starting with much more sensible gun control. Also in the race is Orland Park lawyer Scott Kaspar, who wants to ban mail-in voting and early voting, Glen Ellyn energy consultant Niki Conforti, and Robert Cruz and Catherine O’Shea, both of Oak Lawn. Grasso is endorsed.

7th District

Is it finally time for new blood? That’s the question that anchors this primary pitting a 31-year-old smart progressive, Kina Collins, against Chicago political icon Danny Davis, 80 and an Illinois congressman for the 7th District since 1997.

Collins’ strong suit is fighting gun violence. She is one of Chicago’s leading anti-gun violence activists, and served on the Biden-Harris transition team’s task force on gun violence prevention. Though Collins supports universal background checks, raising the legal age to purchase firearms to 21, and banning assault-style rifles, she knows that the gun lobby’s influence in Washington dooms any hope of passage of those measures. “So people need to start electing candidates and folks who will reject this corporate PAC money,” she told us. “I think the only way we will move these elected officials is we have to move the people.”

Davis’ viewpoint on gun violence prevention aligns with Collins’ take. “It’s going to have to be an all-out crusade leading into November to try and force Republicans to see the will of the people,” he told us. On other major issues such as preserving a woman’s right to choose and supporting Ukraine in its existential battle against Vladimir Putin, both Collins and Davis are on the same page. They both lean liberal. We have admired Congressman Davis for many years, and endorsed him in the past. But we also admire Collins’ energy, passion and activism, particularly for an issue so urgent in the 7th District — gun violence.

It’s a tight decision and Davis’ decades of public service have our respect, but we think the time has come for new blood, and we endorse Collins. Also on the ballot is Denarvis Mendenhall from Maywood, who hasn’t waged much of a campaign at all.

8th District

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi doesn’t just talk about bipartisanship — he walks the walk. The Schaumburg Democrat reached across the aisle to expand federal support for the country’s career and technical education system. He also worked with Republicans to set aside millions of dollars to lower so-called solar soft costs, the non-hardware costs of going solar, to make it easier to invest in clean energy. And he worked with the GOP on legislation aimed at decreasing e-cigarette use among children and teens. There’s also a lot to like about Krishnamoorthi’s Democratic opponent, Junaid Ahmed, of South Barrington. He correctly observes that American education is a mess that’s bloated with overpaid administrators and a prime reason why property taxes are unjustifiably high. Nevertheless, Krishnamoorthi has gotten our endorsement before, and he both deserves and gets it again.

Five candidates are vying in the GOP primary in the 8th District. Our endorsement goes to Chris Dargis of Palatine, a marketing vice president at Cars.com (an automotive classified website in which Tribune once had an ownership stake).

Dargis advocates zero-baseline budgeting “to force Congress to evaluate our spending programs to ensure taxpayer dollars are benefiting the American people instead of lining the pockets of special interests.” Also running: Gilberts farmer Chad Koppie, Peter Kopsaftis, a Barrington Township GOP committeeman, mental health counselor Phil Wood of Carol Stream, and Karen Kolodziej of Itasca.

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