Legislative maps in Illinois aren't broken — they are fixed
Last summer, with great aplomb, former Barack Obama White House chief of staff, William Daley, who is the son and brother of two former Chicago mayors, and Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Peoria, announced the formation of Fair Maps Illinois. The goal of the project is a proposed amendment to the Illinois constitution on the November ballot to remove the General Assembly from the process of drawing state legislative districts and setting up an independent commission to draw them.
Congressional districts were not part of Fair Maps’ goals.
Daley and LaHood’s organization was unveiled around the time Texas Republicans were finalizing their mid-decade gerrymandered maps to favor their party.
There have been prior attempts to put such amendments on the statewide ballot, but lawyers connected to longtime Illinois state House Speaker and state Democratic Party boss, Michael Madigan, now a federal inmate, convinced the state Supreme Court to prevent voters from deciding on the issue.
Fair Maps claimed their approach “avoids the procedural pitfalls” that doomed previous drives to change the manner on how General Assembly districts are drawn.
But last month, Fair Maps Illinois suspended its effort.
Daley, ever the partisan, couldn’t resist getting a dig in on President Donald J. Trump.
“Unfortunately, the outrageous national gerrymandering battle initiated by President Trump has emboldened partisans to retreat to the extremes, but the vast majority of voters in Illinois and throughout the country know redistricting reform is desperately needed. State legislative gerrymandering reform is deeply needed in Illinois, but the time is just not ripe for a successful effort.”
The Texas GOP’s recent gerrymandering move is wrong as is the even more recent Virginia drive, led by the Old Dominion State’s new governor, Abigail Spansberger, who had this to say on Twitter about partisan remapping in 2019:
“Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy, and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”
California, already a Democratic supermajority state, recently redrew its congressional maps to fatten its stronghold there.
Gerrymandering was wrong in Illinois when the Republicans redrew the General Assembly and congressional maps after the 1990 census, and it was wrong when the Democrats did the same undemocratic thing for the next three redistricting cycles.
One surefire way to determine if an idea in politics is a good one is if different political parties support it at different times.
Chicago, which of course is a heavily Democratic city, uses gerrymandering too. It mostly involves preserving the careers of incumbents, most of whom remain in office for far too long. The long and narrow 36th Ward, which can rightly be called the Grand Avenue Ward --Chicago's Dagger -- is the city’s most egregious example.
We'll return to Chicago shortly.
Pritzker’s hypocrisy
Last year, Governor JB Pritzker called Texas’ 2025 remap “cheating.” But his remark exposed what a stupendous hypocrite he is.
When he was a candidate for governor in 2018, in response to a question on Twitter, Pritzker had this to say:
“Thanks for your question! I 100% oppose gerrymandering. Legislative districts should adhere to both the Federal and Illinois Voting Rights Acts, and I support redistricting reform that advances fairness and removes politics from the process.”
Later, after he won the Democratic nomination, Pritzker promised to veto any partisan remaps.
In 2021, Pritzker signed into law hyper-partisan and geographically non-sensical congressional and General Assembly remaps. Of that geography, one congressional district, the 13th in central Illinois, is banana shaped. Of course it has a Democratic representative.
When pressed about his duplicity, Pritzker protested he was unable to tell the General Assembly what do to.
While the governor is technically correct about his fatuous stance, Pritzker could have followed through on his campaign promise and vetoed those maps and told the politicians to start over again.
Real leaders stand out for one reason -- they lead. But that’s not Pritzker.
The non-partisan Princeton University Gerrymandering Project gave Pritzker’s maps an "F" in all three of its ranking categories: partisan fairness, competitiveness, and geographic features.
Pritzker of course knew the whole process stunk, which is why he signed the General Assembly remap on a Friday afternoon. Yes, a Friday news dump.
The General Assembly is currently in session in Springfield and there is no pending legislation to create an independent commission, by constitutional amendment for any other manner, to draw new districts after the 2030 census. Lack of time was given as another lame reason why Pritzker, who was first sworn into office in 2019, couldn’t get his Democrats to create non-partisan maps after the 2020 count.
Chicago protecting incumbents
Redistricting in Chicago is always a contentious affair, which is how the 36th Ward became “the Dagger.”
A casual poll of Chicagoans in 2022 would have probably discovered a majority of voters believed the city would not elect a mayor further to the left of Lori Lightfoot. But Brandon Johnson, a far-left Democrat, is now mayor. Don’t laugh, it’s possible Johnson is another warm-up act for another left turn for Chicago.
After the 2030 census, a weaponized City Council might dismember some Chicago wards seen as politically moderate, such as the 19th, the 38th, the 41st, and the 50th. Another “dagger,” for instance, could slice through the Southwest Side’s 19th -- where many police officers and firefighters live -- all the way through Mount Greenwood to the city limits. The 50th on the North Side, with its large Jewish population, could also be splintered in a similar fashion.
The far-left of the Democratic Party has been increasingly linked to anti-Semitism. Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd), a member of the City Council’s Democratic Socialist Caucus, let her anti-Jewish bias slip not too long ago.
Using Chicago as an example, future legislative boundaries, fair ones, should be drawn along identifiable geographic features, such as expressways, rivers, and major thoroughfares. Western Avenue comes to mind regarding the latter. And the districts should be square and rectangular, with no Oklahoma panhandle-style flourishes.
The perils of continued gerrymandering
Another issue with gerrymandering is that it focuses on our differences -- such as race, ethnicity, and political stances -- instead of other things that unite us. Which is why, in Chicago, Illinois, and beyond, we have a balkanized political scene. And that is also why there are so few moderates to elected office.
With gerrymandering, one party wins and another is drawn out of power, perhaps indefinitely. And that is a very dangerous situation. When government becomes “them” instead of “us” to a wide swath of citizens, again indefinitely, our democracy faces a serious challenge. When a marginalized group loses interest in politics, it is less likely to vote because, very likely so, they will see the process as rigged. “What difference will it make?” many people will say. Even worse, although this is always the wrong response, the likelihood of political violence probably increases as more political entities burrow into the self-serving gerrymandering rathole.
As a rule, nearly half of Illinois’ General Assembly general election races have only one candidate.
Illinois’ no-cash bail SAFE-T Act, five years after it was signed into law by Pritzker after being passed by General Assembly with Democratic supermajorities, remains highly controversial. But voting the Democrats out of power so a Republican General Assembly majority can amend or repeal it, is an impossible task because of partisan gerrymandering. Think of the state of Illinois as a football game with a pre-determined ending. It’s as if Democrats have 10 chances to get a first down, but the Republicans are allowed only two. Which team is always going to win?
Pritzker and the General Assembly, and the city of Chicago, need to address gerrymandering. The time, to use Bill Daley’s word, is certainly “ripe.”
And they all have plenty of time to work out the details before 2030.
And that goes for the rest of America as well.
For once, Illinois can be a national leader in something other than depopulation, unfunded pension debt, and sending elected officials to prison.
Gerrymandering is putting democracy in peril.
