Ives placed Congressman Sean Casten on defense on key issues while incumbent commits significant gaffe on his own record

Friday (10/9/20) evening, WGN-TV televised the head-to-head debate between Congressman Sean Casten (D, IL-06) and Republican challenger Jeanne Ives.

The debate was taped earlier in the day on Friday.

While the full video has not been uploaded to social media, the full audio of the virtual debate is below:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It is the opinion of McHenry County Blog Friday’s 6th district debate was a decisive win for challenger Ives.

On important issues like H.R. 5 (Equality Act) and H.R. 1 (For the People Act), Ives responded effectively with the truth these issues, and others, are out of the mainstream for 6th district voters. She did so on many other issues throughout the debate and Casten appeared to be rattled, often going over his allocated time trying to respond.

Additionally, Casten committed the most significant gaffe of the night.

On the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), specifically on the state and local taxes (SALT) deductions cap, Casten responded with information completely at odds with his record.

At the 28:46 mark for about 25 seconds, Casten claimed to have filed a bill to repeal the SALT cap of the TCJA. That statement was completely false.

Casten did not ever introduce a bill to repeal the SALT cap.

Casten, along with Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D, IL-14) introduced H.R. 1757, to amend the TCJA by RAISING the SALT deduction caps, NOT a REPEAL. Underwood was the sponsor, and Casten was the only original cosponsor. The bill was introduced on March 14, 2019.

For nearly 9 months, Casten and Underwood championed their bill and gained 19 additional cosponsors, all Democrats.

By early December, the House Democrats’ leadership wanted to pass legislation dealing with SALT before the end of the year, and the Underwood/Casten legislation was not it.

McHenry County Blog published several articles throughout 2019 concerning H.R. 1757, and back in December, the following were published:

• 12/10/19, when Underwood and Casten were thrown under the bus by House Democrats who abandoned H.R. 1757 and the legislation was stopped
• 12/20/19, when the House passed the temporary repeal of SALT deduction caps (H.R. 5377), and how Underwood and Casten voted in a superminority on a motion-to-recommit as a protest vote but voted for final passage

It’s rare to see an incumbent member of Congress misspeak their record this badly, but Casten did so.

Whether Casten was rattled by Ives on the previous question concerning taxes and the payroll tax, or had a “brain freeze”, it’s rare to see/hear this kind of gaffe by an incumbent at this level at a General Election congressional debate.

So what do you think of the entire debate, which lasted under an hour? Please share in comments.