103120 Lens Letters #33 What should the Democrats do about the Federal Courts?
Joe Biden’s Commission should propose an expansion of the District Courts and the Circuit Courts of Appeals.
Political Note #247 Sean Casten IL CD 6
Look at the recent Daily Bits on the website: Washington Post on the Hopeless Wall, Two Resisters Political Note #247 Sean Casten IL CD 6 2020 General Election Once upon a time being born in Dublin was an enormous advantage for a Chicago politician. The world has changed. The mayor of Chicago is a gay African-American woman. Many of the people who would have gloried in a Dublin-born mayor of Chicago have moved to the suburbs. Sean Casten https://castenforcongress.com/ was born in Dublin. He is in the suburbs of Chicago. In Downer’s Grove.…
Political Note #232 Lauren Underwood IL CD 14
Republicans think she is vulnerable in 2020. So far, six Republicans are competing to get the nomination.
Political Note #145 Betsy Dirksen Londrigan IL CD 13
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan was raising money for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation when her son nearly died from a tick bite. Helping her son recover took nearly took years of her life. She decided to run for Congress when her her Congressman voted to abolish the Affordable Care Act and the inadequate replacement nearly passed the Senate.
Political Note #119 Lauren Underwood IL CD 14
Lauren Underwood was a nurse. She became interested in health care policy, earned a degree from Johns Hopkins, and served in the Health and Human Services Department of the Obama administration implementing the Affordable Care Act (the health care part, not the computer part). She grew up in her congressional district, overcame serious illness, stood out as a diligent and agreeable student. People in the district know her, like her, and she knows them. They know her as a courageous, even an audacious young woman. Her run for Congress, as a young, black woman counts as audacious.
Political Note #113 Sean Casten IL CD 06
Sean Casten went to Middlebury College in Vermont. With his science degree, he worked at Tufts medical school outside of Boston in a cancer study. From there he went to Dartmouth in New Hampshire where he got two Master's Degrees related to engineering. For three years,Sean Casten worked as a consultant for Arthur D. Little on clean energy. Then he bought a business -- Turbostream Corp. He was President and CEO of a business that custom built fuel efficient heat and power plant. He sold the business, started a new one in Illinois Recycled Energy Development, and created an advocacy organization on behalf of energy companies like his.
Political Note #98 Marie Newman IL 03
Marie Newman is a marketer, she became a partner at age 31 in a national ad agency. When one of her children was bullied in school, she dealt with the personal issue, but also founded a national nonprofit - Team Up to Stop Bullying. She has been a national advocate for cancer research and gun safety. She is running in a primary against an incumbent Congressman because the district is a safe Democratic district and he is so conservative on issues important to women and to progressives.
Political Note #78 Brendan Kelly IL 12
Brendan Kelly is the St. Clair County State's Attorney. In that role he sued banks for fraudulent and secretive mortgage recording. He was the first State’s Attorney in Illinois to sue big pharmaceutical companies for deceiving patients about the dangers of prescription opioids. He created a children’s justice division to prosecute crimes against children.
Political Note #56 Cheri Bustos IL 17
Cheri Bustos was one of those few Members of Congress elected in a district that Donald Trump carried. Even so, she is probably not endangered. She won in 2016 by twenty points. Her remarkable victory led to a profile in the blog Politico which described her as the new face of the Democratic Party. That's not quite right. The success of the Democratic Party required integrating moderates from rural districts like Bustos', suburban Democrats, and more traditional urban Democrats into a party that speaks for all of them.