The congressman from the 6th District is Peter Roskam, a Republican elected in 2006 to succeed the iconic Henry Hyde, who retired after 32 years. He is considered one of the GOP’s bright young stars and was named chief deputy House whip in the 112th Congress (2011-12). Read More

The congressman from the 6th District is Peter Roskam, a Republican elected in 2006 to succeed the iconic Henry Hyde, who retired after 32 years. He is considered one of the GOP’s bright young stars and was named chief deputy House whip in the 112th Congress (2011-12).

A native of DuPage County, Roskam was a varsity gymnast in high school, graduated from the University of Illinois, and got his law degree while directing a charitable organization that used corporate resources to fund college scholarships. During law school, he was part of a team that won a national mock trial competition. As a young man, he also once worked as an aide to Hyde. Roskam served six years in the state House, and six years in the state Senate, where he was the Republican whip and floor leader. Between those legislative stints, he ran unsuccessfully in 1998 for the open congressional seat in the neighboring 13th District, losing 45%-40% against state House colleague Judy Biggert in the Republican primary. In 2006, Hyde, one of the most widely respected conservatives on Capitol Hill, stepped down. Roskam raised nearly $400,000 in two months, and managed to scare off potentially competitive Republican challengers. He ran unopposed for the GOP nomination, conserving his money for the general election.

In the general election campaign, his Democratic opponent was Tammy Duckworth, a former manager for Rotary International and an Iraq war veteran. She was famous as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot who served with the Illinois National Guard and lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed. As part of an effort to nominate military veterans for Congress, then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel, from the neighboring 5th District and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, hand-picked Duckworth. Her high profile made this one of the nation’s most closely watched House races, and one of the most expensive. First, she faced a competitive primary from technology consultant Christine Cegelis, who ran against Hyde in 2004 and held him to a 56%-44% win, his smallest margin since he was first elected. She benefited from a wave of favorable news coverage for her compelling personal story. Duckworth won the primary with 44% to 40% for Cegelis and 16% for a third candidate.

The two nominees sparred over tax cuts, earmarks, the Iraq war, and immigration policy. They also clashed over abortion rights, federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and expansion of O’Hare, all of which Roskam opposed. Duckworth criticized Roskam as “a rubber stamp” for the Bush administration, and referred to the scandal-plagued House GOP Leader Tom DeLay of Texas as Roskam’s “mentor.” While Roskam was climbing a political ladder with DeLay, her campaign said, “Tammy Duckworth was climbing into helicopters and serving her country.” Former President Bill Clinton and actor Michael J. Fox made campaign appearances for her. Roskam disparaged Duckworth as the “candidate from the Chicago Democratic machine” because of her ties to the well-connected Emanuel. He also sought to portray her as a carpetbagger. In one of the few Republican successes in a competitive House contest that year, Roskam won with 51%-49%. Duckworth got 53% of the vote in Cook County, but Cook cast only 20% of the total vote. Roskam won 52%-48% in DuPage—sufficient, though not overwhelming.

In the House, Roskam votes near the center of the Republican Party, aligning with GOP colleagues to oppose Democrats’ economic proposals while acknowledging his moderate constituency on social issues. He backed bills in 2009 to tighten food safety, impose more stringent regulations on credit card companies, and to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate some tobacco products. In May 2007, the House, by a 173-245 vote, defeated his amendment to limit contributions to the affordable housing trust fund when the government is running a deficit. With Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., he unveiled in 2008 an energy independence plan that was based on aggressive domestic production, conservation, and alternative fuels. That year, he also voted against the government bailout of the financial markets because, he said, it was not tough enough on Wall Street executives and “places too great a burden on taxpayers with no guarantee of success.” As a constituent outreach technique, he encouraged participation in his “There Oughta Be a Law” campaign soliciting proposals for new laws from residents of his district. It was the prototype for the House Republican leadership’s “America Speaking Out” outreach project on which Roskam served as a deputy chairman.

In 2009, his solid freshman year and his friendship with party leaders got him a seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee. During the health care overhaul debate, he parlayed his connections with President Obama—the two served together in the state Senate—into talks with White House officials about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. At a 2010 summit on the issue, he called on the president to work with Republicans, who he complained had been “stiff-armed by Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi.” When Ways and Means approved a $15 billion package of small-business tax breaks in 2010, Roskam unsuccessfully sought to index individual tax rates to reflect not only inflation but increases in federal spending. He said the change would enable household income to grow with federal spending without incurring a tax increase.

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin vowed that Democrats would give Roskam a strong challenge in 2008, but in July 2007 Duckworth, the party’s top prospect, decided to stay in her job as head of the Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Department. Instead, Democrats nominated another Iraq war veteran, retired Army Col. Jill Morgenthaler, who was the Army spokeswoman during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. She campaigned on her support for President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq, and accused Roskam of having “extreme” views on abortion, health care, and the economy. Despite early Democratic hopes that Obama’s coattails would reach across Illinois, the national party gave little help to Morgenthaler. Roskam handily won a second term, 58%-42%. He got 52% in the Cook County suburbs and 59% in DuPage. With far more pressing concerns two years later, Democrats essentially gave up on the race and Roskam won easily with 64%. He is the only current member of Congress who served with Obama in the state Senate.