The Sunday Editorial: Illinois Democrats Pick Party Over Voters
SPRINGFIELD, IL (The MPJ) — The Illinois General Assembly has produced its maps for the upcoming decennial redistricting. And, once again, it’s a gerrymandered mess. However, there’s a difference between this gerrymandered mess and other messes in the state’s redistricting past: Only one party is to blame for it this time.
In the past, the General Assembly in Springfield was divided. For example, in the 2000 redistricting, the Illinois House was controlled by Democrats, the Senate by Republicans, and the Governor’s Mansion by Republican Governor George Ryan. And that effort resulted in two districts for U.S. Congress being listed by Slate.com as amongst the 20 “Most Gerrymandered.”
Those two districts in Illinois listed in that article are the Democratic 4th, and the Republican 17th. Luis Gutierrez’s (D) 4th could be seen as a sideways pair of earmuffs. The over-head band of which follows mostly roadways (including the exact width of the I-290 Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago), and connects two largely Hispanic areas of the city. Robert Schilling’s (R) 17th is similarly unusual, though on a physically larger scale. It connects the relatively Democratic areas of the Quad Cities and sections of Central Illinois’ Decatur and northern Metro-East with heavily Republican areas such as Macomb, Quincy, Carlinville and Pana.
So, here’s the districts Illinois has now. Here’s the statewide proposal. And here’s a Chicagoland detail map. And here’s a really cumbersome, and slightly useless Google Earth map of the whole thing.
Do Illinois voters look like they will have a more fair and proper representation to Washington now?
FROM THE LEFT: (by: J. Metzger)
No. Not in the least. Though some of the districts are, indeed, more contiguous in appearance, they still put most Illinois Republicans up against either each other, or against exceptionally well-dug-in Democrats.
The highlights of the map are relatively non-controversial. Macon County (Decatur) is back to being in one district, where it was in three before (18th and 19th, with the 17th splitting both the county and the city down the middle). Many downstate districts appear more generally contiguous (a lot fewer dog-legs, highway-followers, and city splitters), although the Chicagoland districts appear largely the same.
However, a lot of once-contiguous cities and counties are now split, and some split areas remain so. Bloomington-Normal remains split down the middle east-west. The only difference this time is that, instead of being split between heavily-Republican 15 in the east, and the west being part of an 11th district dog-leg otherwise dominated by Kankakee, its west is put into an incumbent-less 13th (13 was in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, represented by Republican Judy Biggert) and its east into Republican Aaron Schock’s 18th, which is dominated by a (relevant but newly-divided) Peoria.
In all, there’s a much greater number of Republican congressmen are either facing each other, facing entrenched Democrats in Democratically-favored districts, or in grossly unfamiliar territory than their Democratic counterparts. What’s more, more of the Chicago suburbs are going to be represented by Chicago-city Representatives (largely due to the decreasing population of the City of Chicago), meaning a lot of suburban issues could get either no representation or mal-representation by Congressmen focused on the city sections of their districts.
In the Chicagoland area, Luis Gutierrez keeps his earmuff 4th. Chicago South-sider Bobby Rush (D) will see his 1st District extend all the way south toward Kankakee. What he doesn’t get, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s (D) 2nd District will grab. The already silly IL-7 of Rep. Danny Davis (D) becomes downright ridiculous. The formerly reasonable IL-6 of Peter Roskam (R) becomes a Pac Man…that refuses to consume Roskam’s home. Roskam will now have to contend with Chicago Northsider (and popular Democratic incumbent) Mike Quigley. The bloody 10th districts trades its bunny tail in Palatine for a pair of bunny ears absorbing Zion and Round Lake Beach, along with the rest of Grayslake.
Now, I know a lot of you are looking at this, and saying, “well, what else is new?” That’s true. And, to be fair, looking at the statewide map, it looks a little more contiguous than the last one. That’s not saying much. Illinois’ current map would even make Elbridge Gerry himself blush with embarrassment. But the new map, behind its slightly more contiguous lines, hides a far more sinister approach. Power party incumbent protection. The ratio of Democrats protected to Republicans co-districted, or drawn into heavily Democratic territories is unacceptable.
And so is this redistricting plan. As much as I favor liberal politics, and in turn favor the Democrats in elections, I abhor corruption, and safe districts. When representatives to the US House can maintain their jobs for nigh on twenty and more years, facing reelection every two, without having to really “run” for the seat, that’s unacceptable, and it leads to a lower quality legislature in Washington.
Voters should pick their representatives. Not the other way around.
FROM THE RIGHT: (by: Nick Otto)
I agree with just about everything Justin has written.
Hopefully this trend will not continue, as I prefer to disagree with as many people as possible, especially liberals. That said, it is heartening to see someone take a side on an issue based upon a higher ideology than Republican vs. Democrat. If the situation were reversed I too would decry this egregious abuse of… OK, you got me. My initial response was, “SUCKER! I’ll agree now but when the tables are turned I’ll laud the Republican gerrymandering as ‘statesmanship,’ or defend it by claiming Democrats started it.”
But then I thought about the issue for awhile, and realized I was looking at it from the perspective of Democrat vs. Republican, rather than Conservative vs. Liberal. When looked at like this, it is clear that conservatives should always oppose gerrymandering, even when Republicans benefit; ESPECIALLY when Republicans benefit.
There are about twice as many conservatives as liberals in this country, yet Republicans struggle to get elected. The reason? Conservative principles almost all hinge upon limiting the power of government; when you ARE the government those principles limit your self-interest. And so the safer Republicans feel, the more likely they are to indulge in Big Government and the corruption that necessarily follows. 1,000 pages of environmental regulation might look bad to a conservative citizen, but to a politician, conservative or otherwise, that is 1,000 pages that can each be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
People strongly tend to do what is in their best interest; it is in a politician’s best interest to ignore conservative principles. The only exception is when ignoring those principles will lead to them losing an election; gerrymandering leads to politicians not having to worry about losing elections. Therefore gerrymandering is bad for conservative principles, even when Republicans benefit.
Gerrymandering is such an obviously un-democratic tactic that I am surprised it has survived this long. Even though eliminating it would require the party in charge to choose to eliminate something that benefits the party in charge, it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to get a legislature to ban gerrymandering right after that same legislature engaged in it.
It would not be against that parties’ best interest to switch to a non-partisan system since no one can know who will be in control 10 years later, and in the short term that party reaps the benefits of both the recent gerrymandering and the voter goodwill from ending it. But perhaps it is not really about 1 party short-sightedly sticking it to the other party, but rather 2 parties taking the long view and sticking it to us…