Sean Thomas Casten (born November 23, 1971) is an American businessman and politician serving as the U.S. representative for . The district covers southwestern Chicago, as well as many of Chicago's inner southwestern suburbs, such as Downers Grove, Wheaton, Lisle, Orland Park, and Western Springs. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Due to redistricting as a result of the 2020 United States census, Casten and fellow Democrat Marie Newman contended to represent the same district in the 2022 Democratic primary election. Casten defeated Newman in the primary election on June 28, 2022. He won the general election, beating the Republican nominee, Orland Park mayor Keith Pekau, on November 8, 2022.
Early life and education
Born in Dublin, Ireland, to American parents, and raised in Hartsdale, New York, Casten earned a Bachelor of Arts in molecular biology and biochemistry from Middlebury College in 1993. He then worked for two years as a scientist at the Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1998, he earned a Master of Engineering Management and a Master of Science in biochemical engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Business career
Casten began his career working at consultancy Arthur D. Little, where he did fuel chain analyses for the company's chemical engineering group. From 2000 to 2007, he served as the president and CEO of Turbosteam Corporation, which converted emissions from power plants into energy.
In 2007, Casten and his father, Tom Casten, founded Recycled Energy Development (RED). RED focused on recycling wasted energy and converting energy facilities to cleaner, more economic uses. RED attempted to make profitable use of waste heat capturing technology, an avenue of electricity generation that attracted interest from a number of startup companies looking to find a "breakthrough" in the technology. In 2015, an investor in RED sued the company, alleging mismanagement by Casten. Casten settled the lawsuit and sold the company in 2016; he said the allegations against him were untrue and were part of a hostile takeover attempt.
Casten was a founding chairman of the Northeast CHP Initiative. He participated in crafting the bill that became the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a program in the northeast United States that attempts to use market forces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2018
Casten announced his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives in in September 2017. He defeated six other contenders in the 2018 Democratic primary to become the party's nominee against six-term incumbent Republican Peter Roskam.
On November 6, 2018, Casten won the election, defeating Roskam by a margin of seven points.
This race was viewed as one that Democrats needed to win in order to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since the 2010 elections. Illinois's 6th congressional district supported Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by about 7 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election. This was one of 25 GOP-held seats in the U.S. Representatives that Clinton carried in 2016; Democrats flipped 23 of them in 2018.
2020
Casten was reelected in 2020, defeating former state legislator and gubernatorial primary candidate Jeanne Ives by seven points.
2022
For his first two terms, Casten represented a district covering parts of five counties in Chicago's western suburbs, including Wheaton, Palatine, and Barrington.
Redistricting after the 2020 census saw the 6th become significantly more compact. Casten lost all of his territory outside Cook and DuPage counties. To make up for the loss in population, the district was pushed further into Cook County, absorbing a slice of southwestern Chicago proper. As a result, it lost its connection to longtime Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, who held the seat from 1975 to 2007.
The reconfigured district included a large chunk of the old 3rd district, represented by fellow Democrat Marie Newman. Although the reconfigured district retained Casten's district number, it was geographically more Newman's district than Casten's. According to calculations by Daily Kos, the new district was over 77% new to him; Newman retained 41% of her constituents while Casten retained 23% of his former territory. Nevertheless, Casten won the nomination. In the general election, he defeated Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau by 8 points.
Tenure
, Casten had voted in line with President Joe Biden's stated position 99% of the time during the 117th Congress.