Our View: Time to end the tyranny of how Illinois draws political maps
From the Journal Star
#twill #leadright #maga #sbalich #elections #fairmap #illinois #madigan
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert Thomas gave Democrats on the high court a figurative kick in the rear end in 2016 after they ruled 4-3 that the Independent Map Amendment didn’t meet constitutional requirements.
Thomas, a placekicker for the Chicago Bears for 10 years, announced his retirement from the court Monday. In that 2016 dissent he wrote the majority’s action should “include a bright orange warning sticker for readers to paste over” the citizen-initiative section of the Constitution that reads “Out of Service.” He also wrote, “the Illinois Constitution is meant to prevent tyranny, not to enshrine it.”
That response endeared him to those of us who are tired of politicians picking their voters rather than the other way around. He was at least as frustrated as the more than 563,000 Illinoisans who signed petitions to put the Independent Map Amendment on the ballot.
It was the second time such a referendum was tossed from the ballot. In 2014, a lower court judge rejected a similar redistricting proposal.
The tyranny may feel as if it’s enshrined, but there still are vigorous efforts to change the way Illinois draws its political maps.
CHANGE Illinois is trying to persuade lawmakers to vote on the Fair Map Amendment, which would create an independent redistricting commission. The group hopes to secure support from enough legislators to put a referendum question on the November ballot. The deadline is May 3.
The Illinois Constitution requires once every decade, after the decennial census, legislators get together to draw political boundaries that affect state House and Senate and U.S. House districts. The process has been required since the U.S. Supreme Court’s “one person, one vote” decision in 1964. In that landmark case, the court required legislative districts represent equal numbers of people. Every decade, districts were to be redrawn based on the new census figures.
The process has been hijacked by partisan politics. It’s not just Illinois. Across the country, whichever political party is in charge in a state gets to draw the maps, and those politicians draw the maps to favor themselves and their friends.
Maps are drawn so that the party in power can have as many like-minded folks within the boundaries as possible, which creates easy wins for incumbents. That’s why they are successfully reelected 97% of the time. You didn’t think it was because they were doing such a good job, did you?
Smart people realize districts are so badly gerrymandered it’s nearly impossible for a Republican to get elected in some districts or a Democrat in others. Good candidates are forced to the sidelines, which is why there are so many uncontested races year after year.
In Illinois, Democrats have controlled the process. In other states, Republicans are just as guilty. The 2011 map helped Illinois Democrats achieve veto-proof, three-fifths majorities in both the House and Senate in the 2012 elections.
Illinois has 118 state House districts and 59 Senate districts, and some of the boundaries of those districts are just warped.
There’s a lot of bipartisan support for Fair Maps. Republicans, obviously, would like to see the system change so there could be more of them going to Springfield, but even prominent Democrats see the value in creating a more fair method of drawing legislative districts. Gov. JB Pritzker pledged support for an independent redistricting commission during his campaign for governor.
However, House Speaker Mike Madigan has been opposed because the current system has helped make the Chicago Democrat the most powerful politician in the state. Lawyers friendly to the speaker helped kill the 2014 and 2016 measures. Madigan allowed the 2018 version of the Fair Map Amendment to die in House Rules Committee.
It comes to this: Are you satisfied with the political makeup of Illinois? Most people who don’t have a seat in government will tell you they are not.
The issue can no longer be kicked down the road. It’s time for Fair Maps.
