by: Diane Benjamin
Mike Madigan doesn’t want the Redistricting Constitutional amendment on the November ballot. In 2010, since a Democrat was elected governor, Democrats got to redraw the maps. They used gerrymandering to insured Democrats will completely control Illinois until 2020. It also insures that Republicans will represent huge areas making it difficult for them to adequately represent citizens in their districts. Below is the current Congressional map. The light purple is Aaron Schock’s district. The gray area below it is Rodney Davis’s district. Both were drawn to make sure a lot of miles were involved. Click on the pictures to enlarge.
The map below is an example of a computer generated map created at the University of Illinois. The districts are more compact and geared toward maximum minority representation. There is more information on their website: http://igpa.uillinois.edu/content/igpa-releases-computer-generated-legislative-district-map
An even clearer example is the Illinois House District map. Below is the current map.
This is the Iowa House map as drawn by computer:
The Illinois map will never look like Iowa’s because of Chicago, but the map can be drawn to provide better representation for citizens.
The purpose of Independent Maps is to take political party control out of the process. Maps will be drawn based on population instead of a quest for power by either political party.
Politicians WILL hate it. That’s good.
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Most of the republicans in IL suck anyway so if one is concerned about fairness, one should strongly consider moving out of IL. Not sure which state is much better but IL and especially including the government of B-N is the pits!
Is there anything we citizens can do to help get this amendment on the ballot?
Petitions have been circulating for a long time. I think the due date is really close, but last I heard they should have enough to get it on the ballot. Of course, Madigan is going to go through every name trying to get it thrown out. I will check with my source.