It was one year ago today that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” had its original profile of the U.S. House Representative from Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, Peter Roskam, who after serving in the Illinois state legislature from 1993 through 2006, has served six terms in Congress since winning office in the 2006 elections. That’s no small feat, considering 2006 was a Blue Wave year, his opponent in that race was (now Senator) Tammy Duckworth, and he attacked her stance on the Iraq War as “cut and run” which is a hell of a thing to say to an Iraq War veteran who lost both her legs in that conflict in a helicopter crash. Still, Roskam is deeply connected within the GOP establishment. Back in the 1980s, Roskam was originally taught under the tutelage of former House Speaker Tom DeLay, who is a great example of a mentor you would want a member of Congress to have if you wanted them to learn about money laundering, before Roskam went on to work under Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde, who you may know as the guy the anti-choice Hyde Amendment is named after, who was also the only member of Congress sued in the Savings and Loan Scandal, who defended the Reagan administration during the Iran-Contra hearings, and was one of the Congressional leaders who oversaw the attempted impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about an extramarital affair (note: Hyde had also once had an extramarital affair). So, Rep. Roskam’s two mentors were some of the most crooked, hypocritical, partisan bastards of note in Congress from the past half century but are decidedly not small fish in the Washington fish bowl. And when Hyde stepped down in his eighties, Roskam jumped at the opportunity to replace him, and in spite of his rhetoric against Duckworth as well as accusations that he had plagiarized several issue stances on his campaign website from the National Republican Congressional Committee… he won the seat over Duckworth in 2006 with 51% of the vote to her 49% thanks in part to the party support he’d built up through the years.
Now, we made it pretty clear that Peter Roskam’s mentors had a long history of corruption while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. So you would think he’s already not a fan of ethics investigations. He’s probably even less of one after he himself was a target of one in 2013 after taking a $25,000 trip to Taiwan on the dime of Chinese Culture University. And that likely was his motivation for trying to defund the Office of Congressional Ethics at the start of the current session of Congress in January of 2017. Because what’s the point of being in Congress if you have to be ethical, right?
Our other big issue with Peter Roskam here at CSGOPOTD is that he’s a climate change denier. Back in his 2006 campaign, during a debate against Tammy Duckworth, he drew groans from the crowd after he called studies into global warming “junk science”. It may not be a coincidence, then, that one of the pieces of legislation he once sponsored, that called for oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic Wildlife refuge was co-sponsored by fellow CSGOPOTD, noted climate change denier, and fellow Illinois Congressman John Shimkus.
A brief look at Roskams’ supposedly “moderate” voting record shows that he has voted against Minimum Wage Increases, equal pay for women, voted against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, voted several times against LGBTQ protections as well as voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, voted against the widely successful “Cash for Clunkers” program that helped save the American auto industry, voted against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, voted against the DREAM Act, has a harsh anti-choice record including twice voting to defund Planned Parenthood, voted against Disaster Relief Funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy… and, in the past session of Congress, his voting record has featured stomach-turning votes like these:
- February 16th, 2017: Roskam votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping.
- March 16th, 2017: Peter Roskam votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Roskam votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Roskam votes for the GOP’s healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Roskam would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Peter Roskam votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
- September 8th, 2017: Rep. Roskam chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Roskam votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- December 19th, 2017: Peter Roskam votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
Peter Roskam could be in serious jeopardy of losing his seat representing Illinois’ 6th in the 2018 elections, when you factor in that it voted in favor of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, and Roskam supports many of Trump’s craziest initiatives. We’re not just talking that he voted for Trumpcare, he has shown some support for Trump’s xenophobic Muslim ban, even as multiple versions have been overturned by the courts as unconstitutional. He canceled all his scheduled town halls so far over the past year and a half, including bailing on attending a packed March for Our Lives town hall this past April because of last minute “scheduling conflicts”, like sitting at home and cowering for his political future.
And, the man coming at Roskam in November would be Sean Casten, an Illinois businessman who has started up several green energy businesses throughout Illinois, and provides a huge contrast to the climate-change-denier Roskam. They had a debate just a couple days ago, where Roskam not only argued against union rights (Near Chicago? That’s not bright.) and even defended Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.
We’re keeping an eye on this race, because Casten seems like he’s cagey enough to bloody Roskam’s nose in one of these debates between now and November, and we don’t want to miss it.
Click Here Full CSGOPOTD Archive
One Year Ago, August 9th, 2017: Peter Roskam (IL)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, August 9th, 2016: Jeb Bush (FL)… 2016 Update
Three Years Ago, August 9th, 2015: Jeb Bush (FL)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, August 9th, 2014:John Koster (WA)