Oak Park River Forest League of Women Voters make pitch for fair maps

The Oak Park River Forest chapter of the League of Women Voters of Illinois recently hosted an online forum on redistricting as well as Fair Maps Illinois, a nonpartisan group of citizens seeking to amend the Illinois Constitution as part of an effort to reform the way districts are drawn for the Illinois General Assembly.

“Redistricting has a long and complex history in the United States, from early examples of gerrymandering in the 1800s to landmark Supreme Court decisions establishing one person, one vote,” said Barbara Laimins, co-chair of an LWV Illinois task force on misinformation and disinformation.

Laimins said the Fair Maps effort is limited to General Assembly districts. Districts in the U.S. House of Representatives are drawn by the General Assembly, as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

“The Fair Maps Illinois effort aims to create a fair redistricting process for our state government only,” she said.

The amendment question the group wants to place on the November 2026 ballot “establishes a redistricting commission that must follow clear legal standards,” according to the Fair Maps website, fairmapsillinois.org.

Prerequisites for a fair map include no use of political parties or voting history to draw districts, maps must prioritize compactness and preserve communities and municipal boundaries, and legal protections for communities of interest and minority representation remain in place.

When the General Assembly is dominated by a large majority, as it is now, the danger is that district maps are drawn for political reasons and do not reflect legitimate changes in demographics or population growth, Laimins said.

“When politicians use redistricting to manipulate the outcome of elections, it’s called gerrymandering,” Laimins said, “a practice that undermines democracy and stifles the voices of voters. Voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around.”

She pointed to the final map drawn up after the 2020 census, a process complicated by COVID-19 and late data from the 2020 census.

The original map was approved in 2021 and was the result of a democratically controlled General Assembly.

“The general assembly was not transparent and the maps were developed behind closed doors, without bipartisan input,” Laimins said. “The authors of the maps also did not disclose information about the data sources used. The hearings were not well publicized and took place on short notice, so the process for the current maps we are using was not transparent.”

Laimins also said Gov. Jay Pritzker pledged during his campaign to create an independent commission and hoped it would veto the map submitted by the General Assembly.

“But unfortunately, he broke his campaign promise and approved the General Assembly maps, which sparked protests from various voting rights groups, including the League,” she said.

Laimins said there have been some oddly drawn districts as a result of the process, singling out Illinois Senate District 21 as one that “meanders” away from being both contiguous and compact, as required by the Illinois Constitution.

District 21 stretches from towns like Lombard in the north, to Bolingbrook in the south and west to much of Naperville. The villages in the south/southwest are connected to the towns in the north by a thin strip of land in the middle.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

“They create districts to guarantee Democrats a seat in the General Assembly,” Laimins said. “You can see they created a seat from Peoria to Bloomington and Springfield to Decatur in order to ensure that this seat would be filled by a Democratic candidate.”

Laimins said the practice of partisan gerrymandering has a bipartisan history.

“I don’t want to seem like I’m picking on just one party,” she said. “Throughout the history of Illinois redistricting, both parties have been guilty of drawing maps that are an advantage to their parties.”

Laimins spoke directly to the main problem of gerrymandering.

“Currently, more than half of the 2024 legislative elections were uncontested, so voters had no choice. That means 50% of our elected officials were elected simply by turning in their paperwork. When politicians had nothing to do to earn your vote, they stop listening…competitive elections keep elected officials more accountable and more responsive to the voter.”

The Fair Maps Illinois effort has significant bipartisan support. Prominent supporters of Fair Maps include Bill Daley, former White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama and Commerce Secretary under President Clinton, and Ray LaHood, Transportation Secretary under President Obama and former U.S. Congressman from Illinois’ 18th District.

In order to get the amendment on the November ballot, the effort must collect 350,000 signatures by May 1. But the goal is to gather 600,000 signatures statewide, just to be sure.

Laimins said the current proposal was developed by a bipartisan legal team with extensive experience in Illinois election law.

“The proposal we are asking you to support will require districts to be drawn to maximize compactness,” she said. “No more division of counties, no more division of cities, no more division of communities of interest for political purposes. »

The proposal also would not allow for political registration or voting history to be taken into account and would require maps to be contiguous.

If the proposal succeeds, it would establish a 12-member bipartisan commission, which will be created by the leaders of the Illinois House and Senate, no more than six of whom will be from the same party.

“This 12-member commission will be made up of four legislators and eight non-legislators – average citizens like you or me,” Laimins said. “If there is an impasse among the 12, the Illinois Supreme Court will name two names and one of them will be decisive.”

After that, the map would be submitted to the governor for approval or veto.

Laimins summarized the forum by saying that “this proposal will ensure transparency and accurate and fair representation.”

Hank Beckman is a freelance journalist for Pioneer Press.