Redistricting “reform” needs to break into desire of pols to let greed take over

It will be intriguing to see how the Supreme Court of the United States comes down when they ultimately rule on a case out of Wisconsin as to how fair that state’s process is when it comes to the crafting of political boundaries.

So colorful, these boundaries are powerful statements

For as we have seen in Illinois, we go through the once-a-decade spat between the political parties that ultimately ends with a lottery of sorts, a random drawing that determines which political party gets to craft boundaries that advance its own partisan interests while totally messing with the opposition.

I’M SURE THERE are many politically-oriented people who believe this is merely the way things are done – boundaries are political statements and it is absurd to think they can be made neutral. Because even that can become a political statement.

Although some say the situation in Wisconsin was so extreme (GOP Gov. Scott Walker wanted to neutralize the Dem-leaning, progressive tendencies of his state, otherwise his own ideologue tendencies to take on organized labor would have become gummed up in a bigger mess than the budgetary stalemate we now have in Illinois) that something now has to be done to alter it.

My own belief is that many of the states that are most heavily partisan in their political boundaries are Republican-leaning, and they are that way because the politicos know how to protect their partisan interests. So anybody who thinks that redistricting “reform” will mean taking down Mike Madigan as Illinois House speaker ought to take a closer look at a place like Texas.

Where in the Lone Star State the boundaries really are meant to ensure that a white settler-mentality prevails, rather than the people who’d be inclined to remember that Tejas was once a part of Mexico (and the New Spain colonies before that).

AS FOR ILLINOIS, I’m realistic enough to know Republicans really don’t have a legitimate argument about unjust behavior by Dems when it comes to political boundaries. Because I’m old enough to remember the era when Republicans had control of the process, and they behaved just as badly – if not worse.

Much of the reason Illinois leans so heavily Democratic is because it has such a dominant presence as Chicago, which is something that Republican partisans would go out of their way to downplay and neglect to advance their interests.

Which makes it possible for Madigan to make the claim he’s looking out for the interests of his home city in halting those who’d just as soon revert to a mentality that says Illinois is centered around Madison and St. Clair counties (the St. Louis area) rather than Cook and its collars.

Marble halls of high ct. to be mucked up by redistrict reality

For those who wonder how so many people can find it in themselves to back Madigan in political spats, that usually is why.

AS FOR ACTUAL cooperation, there was one instance during my lifetime when partisan leaders were able to craft together a compromise. That was the 1970s – and maybe it was the spillover of love and peace and flower children in the air.

But by the 1980s, Reaganism had clearly erased any thought of working together. We had to resort to the all-or-nothing lottery where Democrats won control of the process in the 1980s, Republicans in the 1990s (anybody remember the two-year time period of “Illinois House Minority Leader Michael Madigan, D-Chicago? I do!) and Dems again in the 2000s.

Technically, the 2010s that we’re now in were an era of compromise, but that’s only because the 2010 gubernatorial election gave us Pat Quinn who signed off on the maps crafted by Dems in the General Assembly.

Democrats can compromise with each other – and the GOPers got ignored. Which actually becomes a key issue for the 2018 election cycle.

A SECOND TERM for Gov. Bruce Rauner would make it impossible for Republicans to be ignored. But considering how budgetary matters are all bogged up, I’d hate to see how the level of partisan hatred will be so high that there’s no chance of the two of them reaching a deal.

It really is about greed – the concept that government officials can do something without having to consider compromise. Which really is antithetical to what our system of government is supposed to be about.

Of course, I’m not sure how the Supreme Court is capable of resolving this situation. They have their own partisan leanings, and if they really tried to undermine Illinois they might well find themselves harming their own interests in other states.

Because, invariably the biggest potential weakness of our political system is that we staff it with people who are politicians at heart. And when we try to staff it with non-political people, we get instances of ineptitude such as “President Donald J. Trump.”

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Quinn plan partisan on his own behalf, if not necessarily a political party

It shouldn’t be a shock that former Gov. Pat Quinn came forth with his own plan to revamp the way boundaries are set for legislative districts.

 

QUINN: He wants to beat Rauner at something

After all, it was the man who defeated him in the last gubernatorial election who was behind the effort that recently was rejected by the Illinois Supreme Court. I have no doubt that Quinn would love it if Rauner were to fail on this issue, whereas a plan that would carry his name were to ultimately succeed.

ALMOST AS THOUGH this issue could be the do-over of the 2014 election cycle that saw the “Mighty” Quinn fall short of Rauner and all his anti-organized labor rhetoric.

I’m sure in his mind that would be the revenge his ego seeks for an electoral defeat.

Which means I don’t think there’s necessarily a high-minded principle at work behind Quinn’s desire to alter the way in which legislative districts are drawn for the Illinois General Assembly.

Just as there wasn’t any high-minded principle at work behind Rauner’s continued interest – he wants a Legislature consisting of people inclined to rubber-stamp his goals and desires.

THE LAST THING he wants is the openly defiant Legislature we now have that not only votes against him, but is strong enough in opposition to override anything he tries to veto!

I suspect Quinn would love to be able to take credit for any reform plan to redistricting that becomes law, just as he now is able to take credit for the 1980s initiative that altered the size of the General Assembly itself.

Cutting the Illinois House of Representatives down from 177 members to 118 is a legitimate legacy for Quinn – and certainly a greater accomplishment than most people who get into government service can make.

 

RAUNER: I doubt he's given up on issue

And realize I make that statement knowing full well that some people view the “cutback” initiative as a major blow to the Legislature – and one for which Quinn deserves nothing but blame.

QUINN HAS ENOUGH of an ego that I’m sure he is hurt by the fact he had a five-year stint as governor that basically saw his very own Democratic Party allies in the Legislature reject anything he tried to do on so many issues.

Not just his attempt to extend the income tax increase he had pushed for a few years earlier – which if it had gone into effect would have eliminated many of the financial problems our state has faced in recent years.

Honestly, I expect we’re going to hear from Pat Quinn until the day he passes on to another realm of existence. Even then, he’ll probably become the ultimate political gadfly of the heavens – irritating the lord God himself with his efforts to make it a better place for all.

Insofar as Quinn’s redistricting initiative, I’m not sure how much it would really change things. Because it is based on creating an 11-member panel picked by the Illinois Supreme Court itself to handle redistricting.

THE PANEL WOULD have a six-member majority from one political party, but it would take seven people to approve an actual map of political districts for the Legislature. Which sounds like it would force people from differing political parties to work together to create boundaries.

However, let’s not forget that the current state Constitution includes that provision for a random pick of a tie-breaker for the redistricting commission, which was supposed to scare political people into working together out of fear that an all-or-nothing situation would give them nothing.

It failed to take into account the greed of political people who like the idea of their opposition being the ones who get “nothing.” The human factor may well be the biggest problem with redistricting.

For the maps we get determining who our legislators (and Congress people) are will only be as sound as the people who pick them. Just as we usually get the quality of government that we elect; making its flaws our own fault!

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Battle steps up over reapportionment reform; a little closer to Supreme Ct

Kicking out the old lege for a new and better (more sympathetic in a politically-partisan way) one seems to be the strategy for reapportionment reform. Photograph provided by state of Illinois

Now, the fight can get really ugly as political interests upset with the current partisan structure of the Illinois General Assembly go about trying to force a change to a legislative body more in line with their vision of the way things should be.

For a Cook County judge on Wednesday used her authority to reject all those petitions put together by allies of Gov. Bruce Rauner to force a referendum question on the Nov. 8 ballot about how the General Assembly’s district boundaries are drawn.

FOR CURRENTLY, THEY are put together in a way that results in the General Assembly having Democratic majorities that give significant influence and control over the legislative process to lawmakers from Chicago.

They are the reason that Rauner has been able to get nowhere with his desires to impose a series of anti-organized labor initiatives meant to undermine the influence that unions have over state government.

They also are the reason why Rauner will continue to accomplish nothing, so long as he continues with such a legislative agenda.

He could try to go district by district in the upcoming elections and toss his money at candidates who might align themselves with him in hopes of undermining the veto-proof majorities that now resist him.

OR, HE CAN try to toss out the current Legislature and build a new one more in tune with his image. Which is what this referendum question is about – no matter how much Rauner will claim he’s leading a bipartisan political effort.

I realize there are some good-government activist types who have signed on with Rauner because they’re desperate enough for any form of change in the status quo. But I wonder how little influence they will wind up carrying if this measure were to finally go through.

 

Reconfiguring this jumbled mess of the Chicago area is the goal of some involved with reapportionment reform, while others are eager to preserve it

When it comes to redistricting, I’m aware that partisan politics is a part of the process. I have no doubt that if different people were put in charge (ie., Rauner allies), the resulting district boundaries would wind up favoring their interests.

There is an inherent bias that occurs in the process. Which is why I’m wary of anyone who claims they’re going to impose real reform. Define reform!

EVEN THOSE PEOPLE who would say we ought to create a computer program that puts together boundaries, so as to take the human element out of it. I’d question the biases of the people programming the computer!

I do sense a certain self-righteous tone to the people arguing for the referendum – who largely are ones who couldn’t win at the ballot box so they want to kick the box over and ignore the results of the electorate.

It’s almost as though they think this is 1980s Chicago and the City Council, where the boundaries of wards had been put together in a way that created the 29-member majority that openly thwarted Harold Washington’s mayoral desires.

It took a special redistricting to create more equitable districts to break that stranglehold against the mayor.

IN THIS CASE, I feel like it would be the interests of people who would have opposed Washington trying to get back the control they used to have. I’m skeptical of the whole process.

Which is why I’m not bothered by the ruling of Judge Diane Larsen, although I can already hear the criticisms of it by the partisan ideologues pushing for the redistricting change – she’s a Cook County judge, which makes he biased.

Similar to how when a Cook County judge ruled that state officials could not be paid their salaries while there was a lack of a budget, the ideologues went and got another court outside the Chicago area to issue a contrary ruling so they could follow that one.

 

The gang at Second and Capitol in Springfield will likely have to resolve this legal issue

The Illinois Supreme Court eventually ruled in a way indicating that Cook County’s court likely got it right, and this is another case that ultimately is going to wind up before the state’s high court before we can get resolution.

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Contribute to redistricting reform? Or to complain about it after the fact?

It’s not the largest sum of money -- $25 – in the world. Heck, my latest purchase from Amazon.com (which I’m expecting to receive on Saturday) was for about that much.

But there’s something about the latest plea made Friday via Internet (to make that $25 donation to the group that is trying to get a redistricting procedural reform on the Nov. 4 ballot in the form of a referendum) that bothers me somewhat.

 

How will they use their money?

IT’S THAT I seriously fear the money being raised now will wind up going for negative campaign ads against incumbent officials who didn’t support their redistricting effort – which may wind up flopping because the proponents couldn’t get enough valid signatures of support for a referendum question. It reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live sketch in which Dana Carvey's "George Bush" put out one last negative ad after Election Day to use up money -- reminding us that in 1988's Bush/Dukakis fight, "He beat a bad man."

The State Board of Elections had until Thursday to determine how many of the nominating petition signatures were actually valid, although they extended that deadline until Friday.

But that wasn’t good enough for the redistricting reform types, who want to perceive a grand conspiracy at work (with the support of the Chicago Tribune editorial page) because they didn’t get the one-week extension (to next Thursday) that they wanted.

Although considering that we’re running into the summer months and the clock is ticking; an argument can be made that there won’t be enough time to prepare for a Nov. 4 referendum question on the ballot if we don’t figure out now what questions actually get on the ballot.

THE ISSUE AT stake is that just over 500,000 signatures of support were submitted by the group calling itself “Yes! for Independent Maps.” State law requires a certain percentage, which for this year’s election cycle translates to about 298,000 valid signatures of support.

And preliminary inspections by state Elections Board officials found that the number of invalid petition signatures was so great that they fell short.

We’re now going through a process by which the activists (whom I suspect would hate to think of themselves in such an uncouth manner) are trying to “restore” signatures – and the money being sought now from all those $25 donations is supposed to pay for it.

Heck, even all of Barack Obama’s Internet pleas for money to conquer the beasts otherwise known as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Tea Party activists only ask for $3-5 bucks at a time.

THE GROUP USES quite a bit of bravado in its fund-raising pitch by claiming they’ve really won this fight, except for “deadline fiascoes and political grandstanding” that they’re supposedly fighting against.

The fact that they may have gained a batch of garbage signatures isn’t something they’re willing to admit to.

As for their redistricting reform effort, I’ve written before how I’m suspicious of it. Watching some of those who are leading the effort, it seems that it is a lot of business-oriented types whose idea of a non-partisan Legislature is one that would ignore social issues and put a certain spin on economic measures.

In short, forget all the rhetoric and concern about gay marriage, and focus on something “important” like trying to make Illinois a “right-to-work” state – as though Indiana ought to be the ideal for what a Midwestern U.S. state ought to be like.

YES, OUR CURRENT system for drawing political boundaries for legislative and congressional districts across the state is flawed. It is way too politically partisan – with each political party more interested in dumping on the opposition than trying to benefit the public. The once-a-decade lotteries for control of the process that we avoided in 2012 are the worst.

But I’m not convinced this effort is any less partisan. Particularly in the way it seems unconcerned about inclusion of non-white legislators from areas that have significant ethnic and racial populations.

As for those who suggest that computers should be programmed to draw boundaries, I’d argue the programmers’ biases would take over. They are a unique breed, in and of themselves. There may be no way we can get a perfect reapportionment process – so long as human beings themselves are entrusted to it.

All of which may mean the way we get a “just” political process? It may be the day when those “Damned dirty apes” – Remember Charlton Heston? – wind up taking over the Earth!

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