Democrats Have an Opportunity to Reform Redistricting

A portion of the State Senate districts drawn by Democrats in 2011.

The national media seems to have sunk its teeth into the notion that Republicans alone are responsible for gerrymandering legislative districts around the country. The New York Times continued to press the narrative this weekend.

But all one has to do is look at Illinois insane 2011 Congressional district map, which was solely drawn and enacted by Democrats, to elect Democrats.

There’s the 4th Congressional District, already ranked as the most gerrymandered district in the country, which packed as many Latino voters into it as possible. Or there’s the 17th Congressional District, which packed enough Democrats from Peoria and Rockford in to make it easier for a Democrat to win. They also packed as many Republicans into the 33 county 15th Congressional District to help make it easier to elect Democrats in the 12th and 13th districts.

The districts aren’t compact, they’re hardly contiguous, and they were drawn with partisanship in mind.

Old school politicians, former House Speaker Michael Madigan and former Senate President John Cullerton were responsible for the map making process in 2011 and did so behind a keypad-locked room in the Stratton Office Building next door to the Statehouse.

The atmosphere in Springfield has changed. Madigan is gone, replaced by new Speaker Chris Welch, who says he supports fair maps and wants everyone, including Republicans, involved. Democratic Governor JB Pritzker has committed to veto a map drawn “in any way drafted or created by legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs or allies.”

With news last week from the U.S. Census Bureau that the data necessary to draw new maps likely wouldn’t be available until late summer, Republicans hoped to capitalize. The state has a constitutional June 30 deadline to draw new maps.

Instead of shenanigans or letting a court decide, reform-minded “do gooder” Democrats should push both parties to enact a bipartisan solution.

In Iowa, an independent commission draws congressional maps that generally looks like four squares. I get it, Iowa has a little more…vanilla…of a population compared to Illinois and there are some challenges that go along with it. But with modern technology, there’s no reason a fairer map can’t be drawn. It’s not possible to think there will be 16 or 17 50-50 congressional districts or 118 House and 59 Senate districts that are 100% up for grabs.

We can get better legislators if we have more competitive districts. Too many districts are currently decided in the primary. So you wind up with corruption, extremism, and incompetence in many districts that are heavily partisan.

Clearly, the courts are stacked against efforts to reform the redistricting process, as we saw in 2016. If Democrats want to regain the moral authority on the issue, they should start to reform the process from within right away.

I don’t necessarily know the answer, but an eight-member panel, four Republicans and four Democrats (two from each party in the House and Senate) and they would have to draw a map together, debate it, discuss it, and vote on it in public.

I hope Democrats like Speaker Welch and Governor Pritzker step up to reform the process to make it fairer in every corner of the state. I also hope Republicans don’t stall and use tricks to luck their way into a GOP map.

We deserve better than this.

Patrick Pfingsten

@pfingsten1 patrick@theillinoize.com