Legislative map disaster for public
Voters in Illinois don't pick their state legislators. The legislators pick them.
The proposed state legislative district maps, drawn in secret by partisan hacks, were released over the weekend, and they are as ugly as the most cynical follower of Illinois politics might expect.
Legislators are expected to approve them, or a slight variation of them, by the end of the week. Then legislative politics in Illinois will be set in stone for another 10 years.
The maps are great for Democrats, who will maintain their strong majorities in the Illinois House and Senate for another decade, and bad for Republicans, who will be locked into permanent minority status.
But what Democrats do to Republicans, and vice versa, is not the issue. The issue is what the politicians have done, once again, to the voters.
As a practical matter, competitive elections for the Illinois House and Senate will be nonexistent. The only real contests will be Democratic and Republican primaries because the general election results will be determined in advance by how the House and Senate district boundary lines were drawn.
Because they are the majority party in both houses of the General Assembly, Democratic legislators drew the map. Theoretically, they were supposed to draw legislative districts that are compact, contiguous and respectful of minority rights and community interests.
Instead, Democratic map drawers used voting patterns to draw district boundary lines that allow them to exact political revenge on members of the other party. They drew Republican legislators out of their old districts in some cases and threw two or three of them into the same district in other cases.
Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, was quoted as saying that the Senate map was not drawn to put the GOP at any political disadvantage. Perhaps he was joking. Whatever his intention, Cullerton's comment was utterly laughable and so preposterously false as to lack even a scintilla of credibility.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie was a tad more honest than Cullerton. She conceded publicly that authors of the House map relied on political considerations "from time to time."
Here's the problem with gerrymandering, the skewed map-drawing process that locks the insiders in and the voters out.
Our political system relies on genuine competition to keep elected representatives on their toes. When incumbents are locked into safe districts, they are essentially beyond reach of voters. Then they pay more attention to party leaders than the folks back home.
It's bad business when legislators like state Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, a Democrat, or state Rep. Chapin Rose, a Republican, face no credible opposition election after election.
That's what occurred in previous elections under previous gerrymandered maps, and it happened all over the state.
And that's what will happen again for the next 10 years after the confusion over the new map sorts itself out.
The people of Illinois are paying a heavy price and will continue to do so under this arrangement. How did Illinois drive itself into bankruptcy? Irresponsible legislators and governors spent themselves silly with no fear of paying for their profligacy at the polls.
Why is corruption a constant theme of Illinois politics? Because politicians know they, not the voters, run the show.
Well, here we go again. The decennial redistricting process is nearly complete, and it's another train wreck — for the public.
Why is there no investigative journalism on the political "corruption"? Blago, and Ryan are not the only corrupt politicians in Illinois. It goes through the whole legislature regardless of party affiliation. It has gone on for almost two hundred years since the state was formed. Now, it is taken for granted. Why not follow the political contributions to specific candidates? Instead of people fighting over the scraps, they should be looking at the legislators? Oh wait..... I may have "contributed" for something I felt I needed. What'a you gonna do??? It's Illinoise; and that's the way business is done.
I've got to point out that when Rick Winkel, the Repub, seemed to be getting his way on the map the News-Gazette's tenor and narrative were warm and fuzzy toward the process. When Al Kurtz, the Dem, was outraged about Rick Winkel's moves the NG didn't even print his entire protest statement.
Now that the Dems foisted their preferred map on the voters and won the day the NG is in pitbull attack mode all of a sudden.
Gerrymandering is cheating, no matter who does it. Repubs and Dems equally guilty of the practice.
It leads to ingrained incumbency and corruption. Just look at our past governors.
Voting is a charade.
This isn't new, the Republicans do it just as brazenly when they have the power.
This is why it is meaningless to participate in our so called democracy. Career politicians, incumbents unfairly winning over and over again by cheating and gerrymandering, and rampant corruption as any discerning person might expect.
Secret campaign donations of large amounts of cash and again both sides raking in millions while keeping the voters in the dark about who their money is coming from.
Come on now, and you ask why less than 50% of citizens vote.
Democracy? It is a joke.
Yep; and sadly, we want to push our brand of "Democracy" on countries we have interests in. The more money you can pay gives you more justice, more equality, and opportunity to make more money. All politicians are career politicians. We have the best politicians that money can buy.
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