Latest news with #Casten
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Evergreen Park, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten town hall faces small group of protesters
A month after a town hall in Downers Grove was shut down due to protests over the Israel and Gaza war, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten faced several activists at a similar event Thursday in Evergreen Park. Police officers removed individual pro-Palestinian protesters who interrupted Casten's speech ahead of a scheduled question-and-answer session with about 100 attendees, largely focused on recent policy decisions made by President Donald Trump and his Republican counterparts in Congress. The Democratic congressman began his address at the Hamilton B. Maher Community Center by acknowledging the Downers Grove town hall protests, which led police to cut the event short as several activists approached and confronted Casten at the front of the stage. 'The police felt that there was going to be a safety situation where some people were disrupting, and the audience was not happy with the people that were disrupting,' Casten said. 'The people who were disrupting had completely valid concerns,' he said, but urged Evergreen Park attendees to raise any issues 'respectfully, and then sit down.' However, fewer than five minutes into Casten's address, a protester with a megaphone stood up and shouted frustrations about U.S. military assistance to Israel in its deadly attacks on Gaza residents during their war with Hamas. The protester, who was also present at Casten's event in Downers Grove, would only provide her first name, Lamees. Lamees and several protesters who followed her continued to interrupt Casten to criticize his position on the war, and were individually removed by Evergreen Park police. Some audience members, frustrated with the disruptions, began drowning them out by singing the song Bananarama song, 'Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye).' After explaining the status of pending legislation he supports and speaking out against the flurry of policy changes instituted by Trump, Casten responded to questions from attendees. To a question asking him to explain his support for legislation sending aid to Israel, Casten said much of the funding he supported was intended for defensive weapons to protect Israelis from Hamas fighters. 'There is no inconsistency with loving the Palestinian people, loving the Israeli people and criticizing the governments they represent, but trying to make sure they bring that forward,' Casten said. Casten represents the Illinois 6th District, which stretches from west suburban Lombard southeast to Tinley Park, taking in Chicago's Beverly and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods and areas near Midway. ostevens@
Chicago Tribune
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
In Evergreen Park, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten town hall faces small group of protesters
A month after a town hall in Downers Grove was shut down due to protests over the Israel and Gaza war, U.S. Rep. Sean Casten faced several activists at a similar event Thursday in Evergreen Park. Police officers removed individual pro-Palestinian protesters who interrupted Casten's speech ahead of a scheduled question-and-answer session with about 100 attendees, largely focused on recent policy decisions made by President Donald Trump and his Republican counterparts in Congress. The Democratic congressman began his address at the Hamilton B. Maher Community Center by acknowledging the Downers Grove town hall protests, which led police to cut the event short as several activists approached and confronted Casten at the front of the stage. 'The police felt that there was going to be a safety situation where some people were disrupting, and the audience was not happy with the people that were disrupting,' Casten said. 'The people who were disrupting had completely valid concerns,' he said, but urged Evergreen Park attendees to raise any issues 'respectfully, and then sit down.' However, fewer than five minutes into Casten's address, a protester with a megaphone stood up and shouted frustrations about U.S. military assistance to Israel in its deadly attacks on Gaza residents during their war with Hamas. The protester, who was also present at Casten's event in Downers Grove, would only provide her first name, Lamees. Lamees and several protesters who followed her continued to interrupt Casten to criticize his position on the war, and were individually removed by Evergreen Park police. Some audience members, frustrated with the disruptions, began drowning them out by singing the song Bananarama song, 'Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye).' After explaining the status of pending legislation he supports and speaking out against the flurry of policy changes instituted by Trump, Casten responded to questions from attendees. To a question asking him to explain his support for legislation sending aid to Israel, Casten said much of the funding he supported was intended for defensive weapons to protect Israelis from Hamas fighters. 'There is no inconsistency with loving the Palestinian people, loving the Israeli people and criticizing the governments they represent, but trying to make sure they bring that forward,' Casten said. Casten represents the Illinois 6th District, which stretches from west suburban Lombard southeast to Tinley Park, taking in Chicago's Beverly and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods and areas near Midway.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Democratic congressman venturing into 'deepest red areas' hosts town hall in Dixon
Apr. 17—DIXON — An out-of-district Democratic congressman conducted a town hall meeting in Dixon over the weekend. U.S. Rep. Sean Casten from Downers Grove, who represents Illinois' 6th Congressional District, led the town hall Saturday, April 12, at Sauk Valley Community College to discuss concerns from Sauk Valley-area residents about national events. While Dixon is in the 16th Congressional District, represented by Peoria Republican Darin LaHood, Casten said he decided to set up meetings in the 12th, 15th and 16th districts in "some of the deepest red areas of Illinois" so that Illinois residents could talk about their concerns. "When I found out that Darin LaHood, who's a friend, has not had a town hall since before I got elected, that felt problematic to me," Casten said. The Illinois Democratic County Chairs' Association is partnering with Casten to host the series of town halls. [ Casten, Democratic organization to host town hall meetings throughout Illinois ] Casten answered questions from the Dixon crowd about concerns over Social Security, tariffs and civil rights. "I'm here today to answer whatever questions you've got," Casten said. "Not to convince you that I'm right, but I want you to understand what's going on in Washington, and you can make your own decision." One woman asked Casten how he plans to protect Social Security. Casten said that protecting Social Security requires two main steps, fixing its long-term funding and improving agency operation. He said that currently, people only pay Social Security taxes on income up to about $190,000, meaning high earners such as Elon Musk pay the same amount into the system as middle-income workers. "Let's take this progressive program and stop funding it with a regressive tax," Casten said. "So what John Larson's bill has done is to say we don't want sticker shock right away, so let's reimpose the FICA tax for all income above $450,000, and then over time as that $190,000 inflates, we'll close the gap but we're not squeezing people right in the middle immediately and that largely solves the long-term solvency of both Social Security and Medicare." Casten said he believes Congress needs to step up its oversight role, but that Republican leadership is blocking the necessary hearings and votes to make that happen. "This is a solvable problem as long as we're serious about making sure that Congress is going to do its job and defend its status as a co-equal branch of government," Casten said. Another attendee expressed his concerns over the president's recent tariff exchanges. "Shouldn't Congress be responsible for setting tariffs instead of the executive branch," the audience member asked. Casten explained that while tariffs are traditionally the responsibility of Congress, past laws provide the president broad power to impose them during a declared emergency. He said that while that power shift was likely a mistake, it was legal. "However, the Emergency Powers Act says that if the White House declares an emergency, Congress can file a motion to declare that the emergency is over and if Congress votes within 30 days to declare the emergency over then you can't do it anymore," Casten said. "So, the authority that Trump has used to issue these tariffs is declaring that there was an economic emergency. There's not one, but they declared one." Casten criticized the move, calling it "stupid" and "cowardly," going on to say that if Congress believes the emergency is real, then they should vote on it. "So the answer is, we have ways to restore the tariffs but we need the House to agree to vote on repealing the emergency," Casten said. One attendee asked what people would need to vote if the Trump administration's proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act passes. The SAVE Act would require people to provide proof of U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in federal elections. Acceptable documents would include a U.S. passport, a birth certificate, versions of the Real ID and naturalization paperwork. However, some people fear the SAVE Act could make it harder for married women to vote, especially if their married name no longer matches the one on their birth certificates. "The first problem is that 84% of married women in America do not have a last name that matches the name on their birth certificate, and the legislation makes no provision for how that would be addressed," Casten said. "Second, a number of people who have been victims of domestic violence will have their name changed or otherwise be hiding their identity, and there's no provision to address those issues." During a news conference last Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of "fearmongering" the bill, referring to the act as a "common sense measure." She went on to call concerns about the SAVE act impeding women at the polls as "a complete fallacy." Last week, the House of Representatives voted 220-208, to pass the SAVE Act and the measure is now moving to the Senate. One attendee from the LGBTQ+ community expressed fear that the Trump administration's legislative actions could impede her civil rights. "For the first time in my life, I'm afraid," the attendee said. "I've never had to be afraid before. In fact, I'm enough afraid that when I watched people walk into this room with Trump shirts and MAGA hats I seriously questioned whether I could get up here and ask my question safely." Despite admitting that he could not remove her fears, Casten did his best to reassure her. "The best hope I can give you is that most people who yell on Facebook are not most of the people," Casten said. "Number one, don't judge somebody for the shirt they're wearing or the sign in their yard. Give them that decency before you judge who they are. And for those of you who've got some love and tolerance in your heart, be a little louder." One Trump supporter wearing a MAGA hat asked Casten if he thought the recent tariffs could help bring back American jobs. "It's like taking a chainsaw into a cabinet-making shop," Casten said. "It is a saw, you can use it to cut wood but it's massively oversized for the job." Other topics discussed during the event included concerns over freedom of speech and national security. The evening ended with a plea from Casten for continued community engagement and tolerance. "Our families teach us love, our tribes teach us loyalty, but only the village teaches us tolerance," Casten said, quoting an article from The Atlantic. "We need to create those moments where we can tolerate each other, learn from each other, come out a little bit smarter, a little bit challenged, and it's the only way we move forward."
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In ruby red southern Illinois, Democrat Sean Casten looks to win over rural voters
CARTERVILLE, Ill. — Southwest suburban Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten acknowledged he wasn't sure what to expect when he accepted an invitation by the state's Democratic county chairs to host a town hall Sunday in the ruby red southern Illinois home of the state's most Republican congressional district. In addition to speaking more than 300 miles from his Downers Grove home, the four-term lawmaker's trip to six-term Republican Rep. Mike Bost's 12th Congressional District also meant traversing the sharp cultural divide between a growing upstate Democratic suburban base and the rural religious fundamentalist conservatism that predominates within the 34-county district that makes up the southern third of Illinois. Casten's trip, along with a visit a day earlier to Dixon, the boyhood home of the late President Ronald Reagan in the 16th Congressional District of GOP Rep. Darin LaHood, is in line with national Democratic efforts to host 'town halls' in Republican districts. Democrats are using them as a rallying point over the chaotic early months of Donald Trump's second presidency. It's also poking at the advice that the head of the GOP's congressional campaign committee, North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, gave to his Republican colleagues that they stop holding in-person town hall meetings because of anti-Trump protesters. But unlike higher-profile events featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Casten's southern Illinois appearance was in rock-solid GOP territory, where Trump won 71% of the vote in November and where 70.5% of the district's voters backed Trump in 2020. 'When I see my Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle ducking all of these events and saying one thing out of one side of their mouth and then voting the other way and then not having the courage to stand up, I sort of feel like, if you love democracy and if you stand up, your job is to make sure the voters are informed,' Casten said. 'I'm not going to run against Mike Bost,' he said of the GOP congressman who won 74% of the vote in November as the Trump-endorsed candidate. 'But I would like to believe that when people vote down there, when they engage, they are informed.' But on Sunday, where Casten played host at a town hall before more than 120 people at John A. Logan College in Carterville, halfway between Marion and Carbondale, it was a question from a revered local Democrat — not a Republican — that brought to the fore the party's current internal strife. 'I represent 34 counties in this state, which is one-third of the entire state geographically,' said Glenn Poshard, who represents the 12th Congressional District on the Democratic Party's state central committee. Poshard, a former Southern Illinois University president, was a congressman for a decade before making an unsuccessful bid for Illinois governor in 1998. 'I'll tell you what I hear going around that district, which is predominantly rural. 'OK,' they tell me, 'What are you guys talking about? All we're hearing is cultural issues coming out of the Democratic Party,' Poshard said, citing the lack of child care, health care and grocery stores in rural areas. 'Why isn't the Democratic Party talking about those issues again, which we used to address? But now we've become so urban-centric that the Democratic Party has forgotten rural America?' he asked. 'Now, I'm just telling you what these folks are telling me. I know we haven't. But they know that Mike Bost is not going to speak to those issues. And, if we don't speak to them, who's going to solve these problems?' 'I don't know that I have a good answer, and maybe this is a longer conversation for you and I to have over a drink or two at some point,' Casten responded. 'If we are to be the United States of America, we have to be committed to the idea that we're all Americans,' he continued. 'I think all of us have to try to find a way to do that, especially in this Trump era when we're all tempted to say, 'I'm going to judge you based on the yard sign you had two months ago.'' The exchange between Poshard and Casten highlighted the decades-long cultural and ideological shift in southern Illinois, largely due to a loss of union coal mining and manufacturing jobs. During his time in Congress and as a leading Illinois Democrat, Poshard was a pro-union fiscal moderate and social conservative who opposed abortion, gay rights and gun control. As Poshard bemoaned a lack of attention from Democratic presidential contenders to the region compared with Trump making several appearances here in his three White House runs, Casten sought to point to the political illogic of a candidate on a limited time schedule going to an area where there were few votes to be won. Later, Casten said Republicans had used culture war issues, such as transgender rights, to provoke rural voters and that in areas where Democrats are outnumbered, such as the 12th Congressional District, the megaphone to focus on kitchen table issues had shrunk. Unspoken was the fact that it was Democrats in Springfield, in their zeal to maximize representation in Washington, who drew the 12th Congressional District to be overtly Republican. Illinois' 17-member House delegation is made up of 14 Democrats and three Republicans. In his 90-minute session, Casten fielded more than a dozen questions from audience members. Most were focused on presidential executive orders and the Trump administration's withholding of federal funding as well as the potential for cuts in Medicaid and veterans care in the recent House GOP-passed budget. 'I can't sugarcoat this. We are deep in a constitutional crisis,' Casten said of White House moves involving federal dollars that were not authorized by Congress and the refusal of the GOP-controlled legislative branch to hold the executive branch accountable. 'The rule of law doesn't actually get enforced if you don't have virtuous people in those jobs because the person who's enforcing the law, if they decide not to enforce it, there is no check that exists in that system.' Two women in the crowd sporting red Trump caps appeared to be outnumbered by audience members who took a more favorable stance toward Casten and the Democrats. One of the Trump backers, Laura Reece, spoke generally positively about Casten's appearance despite having a different political worldview. 'It took guts to come down here. And I thought he did a really good job,' said Reece, whose Trump cap is signed by Darren Bailey, a far-right former state senator who ran unsuccessfully for governor and Congress. 'I didn't totally agree with him. But I think he did a good job on explaining things.' Reece, who said she's a bus driver from the Carterville area, told Casten during the event that she sees 'what kids are being taught, what they are not being taught,' how kids are dropping out of the pubic school system to be homeschooled and that 'school choice is an excellent idea.' She asked Casten's view on the issue and he replied how it's difficult for him to support school choice if there's an expectation by its backers that they don't need to pay taxes to fund public education. Asked about Casten's response to her question afterward, Reece said, 'We just got to do something to get these schools to wake up and realize our kids need a better education.' Reece said she didn't care about showing up to the event sporting Trump swag. 'I'm a stubborn person. It didn't bother me a bit. I thought it was kinda funny, all the stares I was getting,' Reece said. 'When I walked in, people were giving me dirty looks. I'm a Southern woman. I can take it.' But her friend Sandra, who was also at the event, disagreed with how they felt when they arrived. 'We were scared. We were frightened,' she said, declining to disclose her last name for privacy reasons. 'It did turn out well.' While she gave Casten credit for appearing, Sandra said that with Illinois so blue, Republicans don't have much power and it seems as if they're not 'allowed to have representation in the Illinois state legislature.' 'We're not his constituents,' Sandra said of Casten. 'I don't know why (Democratic Gov. JB) Pritzker couldn't come. He probably would've gotten a lot more interesting questions that pertain to this area.' To be sure, even in the heavily Republican region, Casten's event was held in 'the islands of blue in this sea of red that's generally here,' said John Jackson, a veteran political studies expert and visiting professor at the Paul Simon Policy Institute at nearby Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Western Williamson County, where Casten appeared, shares some of the political ideology of neighboring Jackson County, the home of SIUC, where President Joe Biden defeated Trump 49% to 48% in 2020 and Trump lost to Vice President Kamala Harris 50.5% to 47% last year. Jackson said that for Democratic voters who have seen listless party leadership since the November election, the Casten event and similar efforts are showing them that Democratic leaders are 'doing something' to 'show the flag and rally the faithful — and right now, the faithful are about all the Democrats have.' But will such efforts reach anyone outside the Democratic faithful? 'That's the question on which the '26 midterms hang,' Jackson said. 'Right now, the rational voter, it seems to me, would look at the possibility they made some mistakes in choosing a guy that upset the world's economic order and military order that had lasted 80 years, just to advance his image of being the master negotiator and the art of the deal.' 'It's not going to get rid of Mike Bost. Nothing will do that until he decides to retire,' Jackson said. 'But Democrats have got to start working on those independents and maybe old-time Republicans around here who weren't really MAGA types.' Bost held a small constituent meeting in the northwestern part of his district on March 22 regarding the need for oversight of solar panel installations on farmland. But it was interrupted by at least one protester. 'You're yellow,' the protester told Bost. 'This Marine ain't yellow, buddy,' Bost, a military veteran, responded before the protester was removed. 'That same thing is happening all over the United States, and it's very well organized by the way,' Bost said of town hall protests on KMOV-TV in St. Louis. 'When I talk to my constituents, I want to do it in a way that's civil. We actually kept this one pretty civil.' Bost narrowly defeated Bailey in last year's Republican congressional primary in a contest of which candidate was a bigger Trump acolyte. Bost's political team belittled Casten's visit. 'What could the Trump-hating, Ivy League-educated Chicagoland liberals possibly learn about southern Illinois' values from a one-hour media stunt?' asked Bost campaign manager Myles Nelson in a statement. 'The vast majority of us are anti-woke, anti-big government, pro-family and pro-Second Amendment,' Nelson said. 'Congressman Bost's record is much more aligned with his constituents than the outsiders parachuting in to score points with the press.'
Chicago Tribune
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
In ruby red southern Illinois, Democrat Sean Casten looks to win over rural voters
CARTERVILLE, Ill. — Southwest suburban Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten acknowledged he wasn't sure what to expect when he accepted an invitation by the state's Democratic county chairs to host a town hall Sunday in the ruby red southern Illinois home of the state's most Republican congressional district. In addition to speaking more than 300 miles from his Downers Grove home, the four-term lawmaker's trip to six-term Republican Rep. Mike Bost's 12th Congressional District also meant traversing the sharp cultural divide between a growing upstate Democratic suburban base and the rural religious fundamentalist conservatism that predominates within the 34-county district that makes up the southern third of Illinois. Casten's trip, along with a visit a day earlier to Dixon, the boyhood home of the late President Ronald Reagan in the 16th Congressional District of GOP Rep. Darin LaHood, is in line with national Democratic efforts to host ' town halls ' in Republican districts. Democrats are using them as a rallying point over the chaotic early months of Donald Trump's second presidency. It's also poking at the advice that the head of the GOP's congressional campaign committee, North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, gave to his Republican colleagues that they stop holding in-person town hall meetings because of anti-Trump protesters. But unlike higher-profile events featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Casten's southern Illinois appearance was in rock-solid GOP territory, where Trump won 71% of the vote in November and where 70.5% of the district's voters backed Trump in 2020. 'When I see my Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle ducking all of these events and saying one thing out of one side of their mouth and then voting the other way and then not having the courage to stand up, I sort of feel like, if you love democracy and if you stand up, your job is to make sure the voters are informed,' Casten said. 'I'm not going to run against Mike Bost,' he said of the GOP congressman who won 74% of the vote in November as the Trump-endorsed candidate. 'But I would like to believe that when people vote down there, when they engage, they are informed.' But on Sunday, where Casten played host at a town hall before more than 120 people at John A. Logan College in Carterville, halfway between Marion and Carbondale, it was a question from a revered local Democrat — not a Republican — that brought to the fore the party's current internal strife. 'I represent 34 counties in this state, which is one-third of the entire state geographically,' said Glenn Poshard, who represents the 12th Congressional District on the Democratic Party's state central committee. Poshard, a former Southern Illinois University president, was a congressman for a decade before making an unsuccessful bid for Illinois governor in 1998. 'I'll tell you what I hear going around that district, which is predominantly rural. 'OK,' they tell me, 'What are you guys talking about? All we're hearing is cultural issues coming out of the Democratic Party,' Poshard said, citing the lack of child care, health care and grocery stores in rural areas. 'Why isn't the Democratic Party talking about those issues again, which we used to address? But now we've become so urban-centric that the Democratic Party has forgotten rural America?' he asked. 'Now, I'm just telling you what these folks are telling me. I know we haven't. But they know that Mike Bost is not going to speak to those issues. And, if we don't speak to them, who's going to solve these problems?' 'I don't know that I have a good answer, and maybe this is a longer conversation for you and I to have over a drink or two at some point,' Casten responded. 'If we are to be the United States of America, we have to be committed to the idea that we're all Americans,' he continued. 'I think all of us have to try to find a way to do that, especially in this Trump era when we're all tempted to say, 'I'm going to judge you based on the yard sign you had two months ago.'' The exchange between Poshard and Casten highlighted the decades-long cultural and ideological shift in southern Illinois, largely due to a loss of union coal mining and manufacturing jobs. During his time in Congress and as a leading Illinois Democrat, Poshard was a pro-union fiscal moderate and social conservative who opposed abortion, gay rights and gun control. As Poshard bemoaned a lack of attention from Democratic presidential contenders to the region compared with Trump making several appearances here in his three White House runs, Casten sought to point to the political illogic of a candidate on a limited time schedule going to an area where there were few votes to be won. Later, Casten said Republicans had used culture war issues, such as transgender rights, to provoke rural voters and that in areas where Democrats are outnumbered, such as the 12th Congressional District, the megaphone to focus on kitchen table issues had shrunk. Unspoken was the fact that it was Democrats in Springfield, in their zeal to maximize representation in Washington, who drew the 12th Congressional District to be overtly Republican. Illinois' 17-member House delegation is made up of 14 Democrats and three Republicans. In his 90-minute session, Casten fielded more than a dozen questions from audience members. Most were focused on presidential executive orders and the Trump administration's withholding of federal funding as well as the potential for cuts in Medicaid and veterans care in the recent House GOP-passed budget. 'I can't sugarcoat this. We are deep in a constitutional crisis,' Casten said of White House moves involving federal dollars that were not authorized by Congress and the refusal of the GOP-controlled legislative branch to hold the executive branch accountable. 'The rule of law doesn't actually get enforced if you don't have virtuous people in those jobs because the person who's enforcing the law, if they decide not to enforce it, there is no check that exists in that system.' Two women in the crowd sporting red Trump caps appeared to be outnumbered by audience members who took a more favorable stance toward Casten and the Democrats. One of the Trump backers, Laura Reece, spoke generally positively about Casten's appearance despite having a different political worldview. 'It took guts to come down here. And I thought he did a really good job,' said Reece, whose Trump cap is signed by Darren Bailey, a far-right former state senator who ran unsuccessfully for governor and Congress. 'I didn't totally agree with him. But I think he did a good job on explaining things.' Reece, who said she's a bus driver from the Carterville area, told Casten during the event that she sees 'what kids are being taught, what they are not being taught,' how kids are dropping out of the pubic school system to be homeschooled and that 'school choice is an excellent idea.' She asked Casten's view on the issue and he replied how it's difficult for him to support school choice if there's an expectation by its backers that they don't need to pay taxes to fund public education. Asked about Casten's response to her question afterward, Reece said, 'We just got to do something to get these schools to wake up and realize our kids need a better education.' Reece said she didn't care about showing up to the event sporting Trump swag. 'I'm a stubborn person. It didn't bother me a bit. I thought it was kinda funny, all the stares I was getting,' Reece said. 'When I walked in, people were giving me dirty looks. I'm a Southern woman. I can take it.' But her friend Sandra, who was also at the event, disagreed with how they felt when they arrived. 'We were scared. We were frightened,' she said, declining to disclose her last name for privacy reasons. 'It did turn out well.' While she gave Casten credit for appearing, Sandra said that with Illinois so blue, Republicans don't have much power and it seems as if they're not 'allowed to have representation in the Illinois state legislature.' 'We're not his constituents,' Sandra said of Casten. 'I don't know why (Democratic Gov. JB) Pritzker couldn't come. He probably would've gotten a lot more interesting questions that pertain to this area.' To be sure, even in the heavily Republican region, Casten's event was held in 'the islands of blue in this sea of red that's generally here,' said John Jackson, a veteran political studies expert and visiting professor at the Paul Simon Policy Institute at nearby Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Western Williamson County, where Casten appeared, shares some of the political ideology of neighboring Jackson County, the home of SIUC, where President Joe Biden defeated Trump 49% to 48% in 2020 and Trump lost to Vice President Kamala Harris 50.5% to 47% last year. Jackson said that for Democratic voters who have seen listless party leadership since the November election, the Casten event and similar efforts are showing them that Democratic leaders are 'doing something' to 'show the flag and rally the faithful — and right now, the faithful are about all the Democrats have.' But will such efforts reach anyone outside the Democratic faithful? 'That's the question on which the '26 midterms hang,' Jackson said. 'Right now, the rational voter, it seems to me, would look at the possibility they made some mistakes in choosing a guy that upset the world's economic order and military order that had lasted 80 years, just to advance his image of being the master negotiator and the art of the deal.' 'It's not going to get rid of Mike Bost. Nothing will do that until he decides to retire,' Jackson said. 'But Democrats have got to start working on those independents and maybe old-time Republicans around here who weren't really MAGA types.' Bost held a small constituent meeting in the northwestern part of his district on March 22 regarding the need for oversight of solar panel installations on farmland. But it was interrupted by at least one protester. 'You're yellow,' the protester told Bost. 'This Marine ain't yellow, buddy,' Bost, a military veteran, responded before the protester was removed. 'That same thing is happening all over the United States, and it's very well organized by the way,' Bost said of town hall protests on KMOV-TV in St. Louis. 'When I talk to my constituents, I want to do it in a way that's civil. We actually kept this one pretty civil.' Bost narrowly defeated Bailey in last year's Republican congressional primary in a contest of which candidate was a bigger Trump acolyte. Bost's political team belittled Casten's visit. 'What could the Trump-hating, Ivy League-educated Chicagoland liberals possibly learn about southern Illinois' values from a one-hour media stunt?' asked Bost campaign manager Myles Nelson in a statement. 'The vast majority of us are anti-woke, anti-big government, pro-family and pro-Second Amendment,' Nelson said. 'Congressman Bost's record is much more aligned with his constituents than the outsiders parachuting in to score points with the press.'
