REDISTRICTING REFORM AMENDMENT CLEARS HOUSE EASILY, MOVES TO SENATE
Reboot Admin ImageREBOOT STAFF
MAY 3, 2016
Voters could see two redistricting reform choices on November ballot
Two years after a lawsuit backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan kept a citizen-led redistricting reform effort off the ballot, Madigan himself voted to get an anti-gerrymandering amendment before voters on Nov. 8.
By a 105-7 vote, the House approved a constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, that proposes removing politicians from the drawing of state legislative district maps and creating an independent commission overseen by the Illinois Supreme Court. The amendment, HJRCA 58, now moves to the Senate. If the amendment receives 36 votes in the Senate, it would be placed on the ballot for consideration by voters.
Tuesday’s vote was a landmark in Illinois politics as reform groups for decades have decried the highly political process of re-drawing legislative maps every 10 years following the U.S. Census. The opportunity to control boundary-making has long been the most coveted prize of both political parties, who have skillfully used the once-a-decade redistricting to more securely embed incumbents of their own party and punish lawmakers of the opposite party.
When Republicans drew the map following the 1990 census, the result was so GOP-friendly that House Speaker Michael Madigan was relegated to minority leader status for two years. They were the only two years since 1983 that Madigan and the Democrats have not controlled the House. In the decades that followed, Democrats won the right to draw the map and now control super-majorities in both chambers. (For a fast primer on redistricting and gerrymandering in Illinois, and the almost comic process by which the map-drawing party has been determined in most years, see this infographic.)
This is why the current map-drawing system has been derided as an “incumbent protection program” in which lawmakers choose their voters rather than the other way around.
But Franks’ amendment almost certainly would not have been called for a vote in the House if not for a well-organized citizen initiative that this week plans to submit 580,000 voter signatures to the Illinois State Board of Elections to force a redistricting reform amendment onto the November ballot.
For nearly a year, Independent Map Amendment has been gathering signatures on petitions throughout Illinois. The group has vowed to not repeat the mistakes that led to the failure of a 2014 citizen effort, which was ruled invalid by the board of elections because too many if the signatures it collected were invalid.
At a press conference in Chicago last week, Independent Map Amendment’s leaders and supporters said they are confident their amendment will survive all legal challenges and make it to the ballot.
Franks said his amendment is not an effort to derail the citizen initiative or confuse voters should both measures appear on the same ballot. He said his amendment is better than the Independent Map Amendment because the legislature has more latitude in what it can put into constitutional amendments. He noted, for example, that his amendment can impose stricter standards for membership on the independent redistricting commission than is legally permissible in a citizen initiative.
It also could allow lawmakers eventually to put congressional district-drawing under the authority of the independent commission. The citizen initiative could not do that, Franks said.
Fear that the citizen initiative might not survive a court challenge is what Franks said motivated him to create his own. Should both end up on the ballot, all the better for voters, Franks said.
“I think that’s an unlikely scenario but if they do make it both on the ballot then the citizens would have a choice of which kind of reform they would like and it would be up to the judiciary to decide how it goes,” Franks said.
The Senate has until Friday to consider Franks’ amendment. To become law, an amendment must receive a majority vote among all voters or three-fifths of all votes on a specific question.
In other words: When there is an Ebola virus epidemic, for example, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs steps in to help the civilian government. But it’s not clear what military official should organize forces when there is, for instance, a hospital computer virus unleashed by Iran.
U.S. Northern Command says it is the main Pentagon support arm that fends off foreign hackers in the United States, a position at odds with policies and some top brass who say Cyber Command plays the lead in addressing stateside cyberthreats from abroad when asked.
Joseph W. Kirschbaum, Government Accountability Office director for defense capabilities and management, warned that until the Pentagon “clarifies the roles and responsibilities of its components,” the military “may not be positioned to effectively employ its forces and capabilities to support civil authorities in a cyberincident.”
In recent years, CYBERCOM and National Security Agency resources have been deployed to deal with privacy breaches at the Office of Personnel Management perpetrated by Chinese hackers, as well as a destructive attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment allegedly orchestrated by North Korea.
“DOD officials stated that the department had not yet determined the approach it would take to support a civil authority in a cyberincident and, as of January 2016, DOD had not begun efforts to issue or update guidance and did not have an estimate on when the guidance will be finalized,” Kirschbaum said.
The Pentagon is required by law to develop a plan by next month for CYBERCOM to support civil authorities in the event of a nation-state cyber strike.
But a NORTHCOM concept plan, which is already Defense secretary-approved, states its commander would coordinate a civilian mission that “may include cyber domain incidents or activities — with other DOD components supporting in conducting the missions,” Kirschbaum said in an audit made public Monday.
At the same time, other guidance directs Cyber Command to be responsible for supporting civil authorities during a cyberincident, the report noted.
Specifically, Robert Salesses, a deputy assistant secretary for homeland defense integration, testified in June 2015CYBERCOM would oversee cyberincident troubleshooting. Likewise, a 2010 formal agreement between DOD and Homeland Security Department names CYBERCOM as the Pentagon component that would respond to a civilian network disaster.
For its part, Cyber Command says the Defense secretary likely would call on CYBERCOM, not NORTHCOM, to provide help during a civilian cyber emergency.
Northern Command told a different story. As of September 2015, NORTHCOM officials said “their command had not delegated this responsibility to another command.”
Meanwhile, Pacific Command officials told GAO it would take center stage responding to a cyberincident within its area of responsibility with CYBERCOM playing a supporting role, Kirschbaum said.
The reasons for the discrepancies in roles and duties are due to the recent emergence of the cyberthreat, according to the report.
NORTHCOM officials said Defense so far has never received a request for assistance from DHS or any lead federal agency for military support, under a civil authority, for a cyberincident. An official within the office of the deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy said the military “expects to receive more requests to support civil authorities in cyberincidents and acknowledged the need to clarify roles and responsibilities in advance of any requests given the growing focus on cybersecurity,” the audit states.
In reaction to a draft audit, the Pentagon on March 14 said it will spell out the officials and components that will aid, as needed, in the event of a U.S. cyber episode.
Defense will release or update guidelines “that clarify DODroles and responsibilities regarding civil support for domestic cyberincidents,” said a response sent by Aaron Hughes, deputy assistant secretary for cyber policy.
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Thursday, May 5th, members of the House and Senate gathered around the Illinois Police Memorial to pay tribute to the two officers from Illinois and 33 nationally who had died in the line of duty in just the first four months of the year. We listened to stories about the officers’ lives, the families they left behind and the importance of state pensions to those families. Unfortunately, disability payments and death pensions are not being paid without a state budget. We owe our men and women in uniform a debt of gratitude. It is inexcusable that we are adding a financial burden on families that are in mourning.Bill Would Remove Statute of Limitations 
