Ethics and views on Palestinians at heart of controversial Illinois congressional battle

The dome of the US Capitol is seen in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)

• Two Democratic candidates standing for election in the same district, which has a large Palestinian population, trade allegations about each other’s impropriety
• Sean Casten highlighted a House Ethics Committee investigation into opponent Marie Newman; she said he is facing a Federal Election Commission probe

ATLANTA: A hotly contested congressional race in the Chicago area between two members of Congress from the same party has descended into accusations of ethical improprieties.
Representative Sean Casten has accused Representative Marie Newman, a fellow Democratic, of ethical violations over the latter’s legal dispute with Palestinian American academic Iymen Chehade.
Casten has demanded that Newman share the details of an undisclosed legal settlement with Chehade in 2021 relating to an employment agreement signed in 2018, before she was elected to Congress.
“I first ran for Congress in 2018, in part in response to the ethical lapses of Donald Trump,” Casten said in a statement. “Public service is a trust and our entire democracy is jeopardized when voters have reason to believe that any elected officials are placing our personal self-interest above the public good. Ethics matters.” In the statement, he accused Newman of “bribery.”
Casten and Newman currently represent separate districts in Illinois, the 6th and 3rd respectively, but after recent boundary changes the latter decided to challenge the former in the Democratic primary for the redrawn 6th Congressional District.
The Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonpartisan independent agency, conducted an investigation last year into allegations that Newman promised Chehade a job in exchange for him agreeing not to run against her. The board did not explicitly accuse Newman of “bribery” at the conclusion of its investigation but in October it recommended that the House Ethics Committee look into the matter further, which it is doing.
Chehade advised the Newman campaign on issues relating to Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories before she was elected. After she was elected, in 2020, he filed a lawsuit accusing her of reneging on a written agreement to hire him if she won the race.
The lawsuit was settled out of court in June last year but the details were not made public and a non-disclosure agreement is in place. Chehade began working for Newman shortly after the case was settled and continues to do so. He is also currently running as a candidate for Congress in the redrawn 3rd District.
Newman is considered a progressive Democrat and a supporter of peace and justice for Palestinians. As such she enjoys the support of the majority of Palestinian Americans in her district. The redrawn 6th District has the largest concentration of Palestinian Americans in the country.
In a statement to Arab News, Newman denied any wrongdoing and accused Casten of alleged ethical and financial improprieties, highlighting a federal investigation of his financial and business dealings.
“Voters should be aware of several recent lawsuits encompassing Rep. Casten, after being accused of an effort to enrich himself at others’ expense, as well as the current federal investigation in which Rep. Casten is accused of a federal felony for illegally coordinating his campaign and his father’s super PAC against former female primary opponent, Kelly Mazeski,” Newman said.
A super PAC is a political action committee that can raise unlimited amounts of campaign funding from corporations, unions and individuals but is not permitted to contribute to or coordinate directly with political parties or candidates.
Newman added: “Rep. Casten never answered questions about his current and active FEC (Federal Election Commission) complaint and investigation into the allegation of a federal felony where he, his campaign and his father’s super PAC illegally coordinated to oust a progressive female primary opponent, all under one roof.”
Her supporters claim that the local mainstream media has failed to properly scrutinize Casten’s alleged impropriety.
Newman supports efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. She voted for congressional bills that aimed to attach improvements to the human rights of Palestinians as conditions for US foreign aid to Israel, which angered right-wing and pro-Israeli groups in the US. She also voted last year against a bill for $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which was approved.
Casten, meanwhile, has the support of several Jewish organizations including the Democratic Majority for Israel, Jewish Democrat Council of America, and J Street.
Tarek Khalil, a Palestinian American activist from the 6th District told Arab News that Casten advocates the kind of “liberal Zionist lines” that do not bring any improvement to the lives of Palestinians who have been suffering under Israeli military occupation since 1967.
Newman, he said, “has a proven record when it comes advocating for Palestinians’ rights.”
Tammy Georgiou, a voter in the district, told the Arab News that as a woman and a progressive democrat, Casten’s history and behavior relating to his contest against his former female primary opponent made her feel “uncomfortable.”
She added: “I am a woman voter and Casten’s attacks on progressive women candidates are worrisome.”