In campaign that has raised social issues, US Rep. Sean Casten looks to cement power against Keith Pekau

In one of the Chicago area’s tightest congressional battles, an incumbent Democrat is looking to solidify his spot in Congress against a south suburban GOP challenger in a race that has touched on social wedge issues, from pandemic mask mandates and a state crime bill to abortion rights and a suburban library drag show.

After beating fellow Democratic incumbent Marie Newman in the primary election, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten seeks his third term in a newly reconfigured 6th Congressional District, a win that could set him up for an extended run in the House.

On the ballot opposite him, Republican Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau has tried to make a name for himself as mayor by opposing Pritzker’s pandemic restrictions and vowing to oppose aspects of the so-called SAFE-T Act set to eliminate cash bail statewide and change the ways local police can cite people for certain crimes.

The candidates have sparred over the economy and abortion rights.

And the race has heated up in the months since Pekau came out against a planned October drag queen bingo event for teenagers at the Downers Grove Public Library. He spotlighted the program in a late August statement, saying it “targets children” and was “inappropriate, and an unacceptable use of taxpayer funds.”

“Let’s let children be children,” Pekau said in an interview, of why he opposed the drag event. “The innocence of childhood only lasts so long.”

The library canceled the event in September after receiving threats, including some reports that a letter was sent to the library in an envelope containing a bullet.

The organization Awake Illinois opposed the drag bingo event and also spoke out against a child-friendly drag event at a bakery in northwest suburban Lake in the Hills that was canceled after someone broke in and vandalized the business with hateful messages. The group gave Pekau an award in March for his refusal to enforce Pritzker’s COVID-19 mask mandates in Orland Park.

Pekau said Awake Illinois is made up of “normal people, they’re not violent in any way or any of that. They’re just parents who care about their kids.”

“I don’t know what their broader positions are,” Pekau said. “The people that I’ve talked to from Awake Illinois, they’re parents that are concerned, and they want their children to be children. They want their children — they don’t want (critical race theory) in their classrooms. They don’t want their children being exposed to a bunch of sexual (themes) in their classrooms. I agree with those positions.”

Casten, who has publicly battled with Awake Illinois so much that he says the group has threatened to take legal action against him, scoffed at that.

“Keith Pekau is a complete coward who was endorsed by a hate organization and doesn’t have the dignity to say it,” Casten said. “I find it disgusting that he’s out there, somehow saying it was a good thing, that he’s OK with getting a culture warrior, whatever the award was he got from this group.”

“This is at the ragged edge of domestic terrorism,” Casten said of Awake Illinois.

Abortion has taken center stage in the race, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joining Casten last week at a Downers Grove event about efforts to protect reproductive rights.

While she didn’t mention Pekau, Pelosi said a vote for a Republican is a vote to outlaw abortions. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced legislation in September that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Pekau described his own position on abortion as “pro-life, with exceptions for the mother’s life, rape and incest.” He said Casten is only talking so much about abortion because he and other Democrats are failing to fix the economic and public safety problems that are most important to voters right now.

“It’s because they can’t talk about the other things, because their record on that right now is abysmal,” he said.

“I don’t hear much on (abortion),” Pekau said. “It plays for a very small percentage of the voting electorate that votes strictly on that issue. So we don’t hear a lot about it.”

Casten countered that abortion is by definition important to voters.

“Last time I checked, 50% of the people in the 6th District are women,” he said. “And 50% of the 6th District just had their rights stripped away from them in the Dobbs decision. They really, really care about this. They’re really, really upset. And frankly, not just women. Every empathetic man is also really upset about this.

“And to hear anybody, I don’t care if you’re my opponent or someone else, say that something that affects 50% of the electorate doesn’t matter politically, we may have to have a class on fractions. It’s a big deal.”

On the economy, Casten defended the work of President Joe Biden’s administration. And he said voters appreciate that he discusses with them the inflation control measures American officials can enact, and the parts of the economic picture that are out of their control.

“Make no mistake, everybody is concerned about the price of gasoline, the price of groceries, and I did a whole town hall on inflation three months ago, specifically to address this, and try to get people to understand what we were doing in Washington, and what’s within our power,” he said.

“Because there’s some parts of this that are demand-driven, there’s some parts that are because we have supply constraints in our economy … and then there’s big parts of it that are international.”

Pekau has been Orland Park mayor since 2017. He won a second term in 2021. He said that background gives him a much stronger position to convince voters he can handle financial challenges. Biden and other Democrats have yet to acknowledge the severity of the problem, he said.

“As mayor, I’ve done the things that are needed, that help fix the inflation and the economy, so people know I believe in this thing,” he said. “I’ve lowered debt, I’ve lowered spending. I’ve made government more efficient.”

At stake in the election could be the long-term future of this congressional seat.

Winning for the third time, with new Democratic Party-designed boundaries that will be in place until the next remap after the 2030 census, might make Casten the favorite to keep it for several more terms. A Pekau victory could signal a swing back toward GOP ascendance.

During the once-per-decade congressional remap last year, Illinois Democrats who controlled that process tried to draw a district Casten could defend, but it still isn’t as lopsided a pro-Democratic seat as some others around the state. Biden won the new 6th District 54.5% to 43.6% for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, according to an analysis by Daily Kos.

The 6th now includes Chicago’s Beverly and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods and areas near Midway Airport as well as southwest suburban towns, including Orland Park and Alsip. It also sweeps through the west suburbs, taking in all or parts of Burr Ridge, Darien, Elmhurst, Hickory Hills, Oakbrook Terrace, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Hills, Western Springs, Willowbrook and Worth, and extends north to Villa Park and west to Downers Grove.

Casten has held the 6th District since he beat six-term Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam in 2018. That election was seen as a benchmark win for Democrats, since the seat had been in the hands of conservative U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde for decades prior to Roskam.

The moderate suburban district went Casten’s way in a tight, nationally watched midterm election during Trump’s administration, when Democrats made gains across the U.S. He pulled 53.6% of the vote in that contest, to 46.4% for Roskam, according to the Illinois Board of Elections.

Casten held onto it in 2020 with 52.8% to 45.4% for Republican former state Rep. Jeanne Ives.

With Biden now in the White House, Casten is trying to keep his post even as Republicans hope to take it back as part of a broader surge during the November midterms.

Pekau thinks he’s in a strong position to take the incumbent down.

“I have a record to run on, I think it’s good on the issues people care about,” he said.

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

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