Feb. 04--Dear Mr. President,
We were delighted that your final State of the Union address included a shoutout to one of Illinois' most urgent causes -- ending partisan redistricting. Thank you and amen.
Would you be so kind as to repeat that pitch, very slowly, during your homecoming tour next week in Springfield?
"We have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around," you told Congress, and the nation, last month.
You probably weren't surprised that the Democrats in the House chamber leapt to their feet and applauded, while the Republicans stayed seated. The Republican wave of 2010 gave the GOP control of dozens of state legislatures -- and with it, the power to draw congressional districts designed to elect more Republicans.
That's one reason why they managed to win 54 percent of U.S. House seats in the 2012 election despite collecting only 49 percent of the popular vote. In 2014, they won 57 percent of the seats with 52 percent of the vote.
When politicians draw legislative maps, their goal isn't fair representation -- it's partisan advantage. They rig the maps to control the outcome of the election, and in doing so, they rob voters of choices.
This year, only 21 of 435 U.S. House districts are considered "tossups," meaning either party has a good chance of winning in November, according to the Cook Political Report. Another 37 lean left or right but not decidedly so. That leaves 377 seats, of which 207 are considered a lock for Republicans and 170 for Democrats. Almost nine out of every 10 seats is a gimme.
Partisan mapmaking is a big reason for the polarization and gridlock in Congress.
It's also a big reason for the polarization and gridlock in the Illinois General Assembly.
In Illinois, Democratic lawmakers drew the current maps -- and like Republicans elsewhere, they took care of their own.
Our congressional delegation is 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, though the statewide vote in the last election was 51 percent Democrat to 49 percent Republican.
The real disparity is in state House and Senate seats, where those lawmakers got to draw their own districts. Democrats hold 60 percent of seats in the state House, even though the statewide vote in 2014 was split almost 50-50, according to an analysis by CHANGE Illinois, which advocates for redistricting reform. Democrats collected 46 percent of the total votes for state senators -- but won 11 of the 19 races.
The maps are so skewed that many districts had only one candidate on the ballot. In 2014, 49 percent of lawmakers elected to the House and 63 percent of those elected to the Senate had no opponent in either the primary or the general election. Voters had no opportunity to elect the representative of their choice. None.
Mr. President, as you put it so eloquently in the State of the Union address: The politicians picked their voters, not the other way around.
Voters in Illinois are working to claw back that power. They're trying -- for the third time in as many election cycles -- to pass a constitutional amendment that would put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission. Their state representatives, tellingly, have refused to put the measure on the ballot. That leaves the citizens to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures and to raise and spend $1 million or more to promote their cause -- and to fight the lawyers who are paid by politicians to try to kill the amendment.
As a registered Illinois voter, Mr. President, you can sign that petition. We hope you do it while you're here.
We hope you'll throw your support behind the Independent Map Amendment and admonish our lawmakers to do the same.
Partisan gerrymandering is bad for democracy, regardless of whether the goal is to color the map red or blue. It empowers party leaders at the expense of voters. It discourages competition and protects mediocre incumbents.
How bad is it? All 118 seats in the Illinois House and 40 seats in the Senate are up for election this year. On the March 15 ballot, there are only 30 contested primaries.
Think about that, Mr. President, when you stand before the General Assembly to deliver what your staff has billed as a "legacy speech." Scanning the crowd, you'll recognize many familiar faces: 52 of your former colleagues are still in office, 12 years after you left Springfield for Washington to join the U.S. Senate.
Have they been re-elected, over and over, because they're doing such a bang-up job? Or is it because voters have never had another choice?
