Illinois constitutional convention needs to amend the redistricting provision
One part of the Illinois Constitution is clearly broken (even Dawn Clark Netsch agrees) and that's the provision that governs redistricting.
The General Assembly gets to draw the map. And if they can't, then a Commission is set up to do the job, 4 Dems and 4 Republicans. And if they can't do the job, then guess how the ninth member of the Commission is chosen, pursuant to the Illinois Constitution?
Not later than September 5, the Secretary of State publicly shall draw by random
selection the name of one of the two persons to serve as the ninth member of the
Commission.
That's right: out of a hat.
We have democracy by lottery. And that is unique to the nation -- and perhaps the democratic world. The Paul Simon Institute has a nice white paper for some background reading.
There are lots of ways to fix this problem. The Ladd Commission (a blue ribbon panel set up in the mid to late 1990s) suggested a computer-generated map would help as well as separating the two House districts from the one Senate district. Representative James Brosnahan filed a constitutional amendment HJRCA 44 that passed the House but did not get called in the Senate that would also separate the House map from the Senate map and ditch the Commission with it's democracy by lottery provision in favor of a Special Master appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (and one other Member). Representative Jack Franks suggests in an NPR story today that a computer-generated map would make most sense instead of having "incumbets protect their own turf."
The best way to tackle this glaring deficiency in the Illinois Constitution is to convene a constitutional convention by voting yes this November where we can solve this before the 2011 redistricting process with an amendment to appear on the 2010 ballot.
Of course, some people who think we should not tolerate such a ridiculous provision of the Constitution are scared of a constitutional convention. Governor Edgar apparently falls in that camp. He's in the same WBEZ story as Representative Franks, and he said because there's no "guarantee" that the issue will be dealt with the way you want them dealt with, there's no reason to roll the dice.Problem is, the way the issue has been dealt with is by sticking with democracy by lottery (with the exception of the House of Representatives that did pass the Brosnahan amendment). So either you decide to trust the people to fix the problem through an elected body focused only on improving the constitution, or you hope the General Assembly will put an amendment on the ballot when they haven't done so in the 38 years we've had the current Constitution.
So voting no is really rolling the dice -- on who gets to draw the map in 2011!
5 comments:
Who the heck do you think is going to draw the map? Mike Madigan that is who. Enjoy it. I cannot wait to see how DuPage is carved up. Will he do it in time for Thaksgiving? Do it like Iowa. Every ten years it is a lottery and as usual the players (voters)_ loose.
In no remap since 1970 has the same party controlled both chambers of the legislature and the governors office. But in 2011 it seems likely that the Dems will have all three. So it also seems more likely that the map will be drawn without reverting to the hat. But there'll be no way of knowing until we get there, and by then, it'll be too late to vote for a Con Con.
Where in the Constitution does it say that if voters want a Convention, there must be a special election in 2009? The vote could well be put off until November, 2010, and then the delegates would really have to scramble to get changes approved before September 5, 2011. And if the House and Senate cannot agree on how that election is to be held, and take no action in time for the 2010 elections, then what?
This could be a Democratically-drawn map, which is a good thing from the perspective of electing more Democrats but is a bad thing from the perspective of good government and trying to maximize the power of regular voters to decide who runs the government. (Of course, the ultimate answer to that is to use proportional representation so that the number of seats each party has is a function of how many votes they get statewide, not how many districts they happen to win when the district lines are so manipulated, but that's another story).
And for all the what ifs that the third poster suggests, I've got one for you: what if we don't take the opportunity to hold a convention? Then what?
Can anyone honestly say that Illinois government isn't broken? It would appear that all of the forces that are lining up against the Con-Con are all interested in preserving their special part of the constitution at the expense of the chance for real progress for the state.
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