Your Views

Politics unfairly misstate record

A few years ago, I was discussing political matters with a senior staff member for a major Democratic state legislator when he indicated to me that Republican Peter Roskam was symbolic of the kind of legislator who would work with state/federal legislators of the other party to get things done. Fast forward and today Roskam is now in a race in which his Democratic opponent, Sean Casten, is characterizing him as a polarizing figure and a clone of Donald Trump who can't work with anyone except the president. How did our current political environment get so vitriolic that this kind of posturing is necessary in order for political opponents to win an election against Roskam?

Did Peter Roskam change his political style that dramatically lately that he is now the direct opposite of what one Democratic operative only a few years ago called a collaborative individual? I highly doubt this. Today special interests based on gender, race and ethnicity dominate and divide both political parties and foster a "group think" mentality toward issues, like education and health care, within their respective parties that leaves no room for compromise.

Ironically during this campaign, who mirrors most the party mold of "group think" and is the greater party ideologue is not Roskam but Casten. Mr. Casten should perhaps look at his own behavior and comments before he accuses Mr. Roskam of such actions.

Mr. Roskam does have a record of working with the opposing party and at times calling attention to his party's failings. Mr. Casten has no record to go on, but from his campaign demeanor indicates he will work only within his party because his party has all the answers and is never wrong.

Therefore, vote for Roskam. He will end stalemates and get legislation done.

Carol Gulan

Schaumburg

Be seen, heard. Vote

Only about 27 percent of eligible Asian-American voters voted in the 2014 midterms - compared to a national average of about 37 percent of Americans. As an Indian American woman, it can sometimes feel like no one represents my interests or my community. I remember the excitement I felt when I researched my first ballot, followed by the frustration that nobody representing my district made any mention of my community or the issues closest to my heart.

Even if I don't have my ideal ballot or candidate, my vote allows me to represent my community and elevate the issues I care about. Voting allows us to raise our voices, to shape the world around us and to be seen and heard. That is why I am working with the Skimm on it's No Excuses campaign this midterm cycle to help turn out voters. Please join me in voting - be seen and heard.

Akanksha Shah

Buffalo Grove

Change in Washington

Over the last year, with our country facing a crumbling infrastructure, out-of-control health care and higher education costs and a worsening climate crisis, Peter Roskam and his Republican colleagues in Congress have decided that the single most important thing they could do would be to cut taxes for the wealthy. Now they're back at it again, with a second round of tax cuts that's going to add $3 trillion to the deficit.

In order to funnel even more money toward giving already-profitable corporations a bigger tax cut, this Congress decided to eliminate the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which required every American who could afford it to buy health insurance. This single decision will lead to 13 million fewer Americans having health insurance by 2027 according the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and will cause the premiums for those who can afford insurance to rise by as much as 10 percent each year. With so many people losing access to insurance, experts predict this change will result in about 10,000 additional deaths each year.

We need a Congress that acts on behalf of the American people, not just the people who send them campaign contributions.

There's nothing about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act or Peter Roskam's record on tax cuts that's pro-business, pro-growth, or pro-middle class. The last year of Republican tax policy has been a handout to wealthy donors and special interest groups that working families are going to end up paying for and the people of Illinois' 6th District deserve better. It's time for a change in Washington.

Michael Pine

Evanston

What's important

Congressman Peter Roskam thinks Sean Casten should renounce Dan Savage because Savage has made harsh remarks about Christianity. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan admires Ayn Rand, a woman who wrote, "So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do - then, I know they don't believe in life." I don't recall Roskam demanding that Ryan denounce the founder of Objectivism.

Roskam's campaign posted a video criticizing Casten for saying the Illinois Sixth Congressional District is "mostly white." The district, however, is about 89 percent White. Isn't that just a statement of fact?

To me, it's more critical that Roskam votes with Donald Trump's agenda 94 percent of the time and tries to conceal his desire to cut Medicare and Social Security by calling these programs "entitlements." Another Roskam term will do far more harm to the residents of the Sixth District than the comments of a Washington state columnist.

William Brinkman

Palatine

Moral compass gone

Well finally the Republicans' theory of trickle down has been found to work, just not in economic theories where with each tax beak given the most fortunate, the gap has widened between the super rich and the other classes. The trickle-down effect does work in the failure to uphold the oath office each Republican made to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. From top to bottom, the Republican Party has waded into the party of Trump and has failed the duty to operate as the check on the executive branch. In doing so, the party has lost its moral compass as the lack of integrity, honesty and moral fiber of Trump has filtered down to the other members of his party.

Richard Shopiro

Buffalo Grove

Wish I could vote

I'm a high school senior, born in 2001, so I can't vote in next week's election. Also, I don't live in the 6th district, so even if I were old enough, I couldn't vote for either Sean Casten or Peter Roskam. But I want to have a say on one issue, climate change, that will affect young people the most, wherever they live - an issue that Mr. Casten and Mr. Roskam disagree on.

Leaders should understand climate change and not deny the reality of it. Because Mr. Roskam does deny it - he even has called it "junk science" - he should be voted out.

According to NASA, seventeen of the eighteen warmest years on record have occurred since the year I was born.

For my whole life the world has had a fever. If Mr. Roskam were the pediatrician for the planet, he would say don't worry. Is this the kind of attitude you want from somebody your children are counting on? If your child's doctor said the thermometer can be ignored, that doctor would be facing a lawsuit.

In contrast, Mr. Casten knows climate change is real. He knows denying or ignoring it is no answer. He deserves support now and in the future.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at their highest in 650,000 years.

Today's level, above 400 parts per million, is almost 50 percent higher than just two centuries ago. Even now, according to reliable sources, this change is causing droughts that drive human migration, like the "caravan" in Mexico that's getting so much attention.

Those migrants are driven largely by hunger caused by drought.

Young people all over the country and the world, will be most hurt by climate-change deniers like Mr. Roskam. Please support Mr. Casten, for those of us who don't have a say yet.

Zephyr Balch

Evanston