53 Comments - 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 1:45 pm: 9-8-1 still feels like the Democrats are letting incumbents draw the map. A big mistake, in my opinion, which is what we did 10 years ago. The Party ought to draw them compact, contiguous and as blue as possible. - Team Sleep - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:01 pm: In all honesty, this type of scenario is not nearly as ridiculous as the 2001 map, which cut that stupid 17th District and continued the horseshoe-shaped 4th District’s boundaries. It is pretty much a guarantee that one of the recent Republican victors would see his seat drawn out. My money would still be on either Schilling or Walsh because Dold has his own money and would be a pretty tough get for the Dems. Joe Walsh would be sitting duck. We shall see. - ANON - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:03 pm: No matter how they draw the districts, except for a few rural and urban areas it still comes down to candidates. The current 17th was drawn in absurd fashion to be a safe Democrat district, but one poor candidate and election momentum for the opposing party, and suddently it’s a “swing” district. - Reiswatcher - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:04 pm: I am hearing about a rumble on the river down in the Eddy and Reis districts. Should be fun to watch two good pubs shoot it out. - Bill White - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:05 pm: Disgusting? Yup Same as it ever was? Yup Minority party (whether Dem or GOP) squealing loudest? Yup Same as it ever was? Yup - Rich Miller - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:14 pm: People, I just deleted four, angry drive-by comments that said pretty much nothing. No bumper sticker slogans are allowed here, folks. Go away or take a deep breath before commenting. - Bitterman - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:17 pm: Same as it ever was? Sorta. This is a slam dunk, much like Gibson doing a poster on Wade in the Bulls game. Is it right, well no…not for us average citizen types but in this case might makes right. The map process is transparent alright, transparently abusive. Okay, over with that. It is what it is, better just move on. - Anonymous - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:18 pm: Rich, Is there a cesspool where you dump all the deleted comments? That would be fun to read from time to time. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:26 pm: ===Is there a cesspool where you dump all the deleted comments?=== Somebody suggested to me the other day that I start a pay per view site where people could read all deleted comments. lol Currently, they just disappear into the ether. - Not It - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:29 pm: Perhaps the fact that you’ve already deleted so many comments in such a short period of time is an indicator of something by itself. - Shore - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:32 pm: I didn’t realize lipinski was that worried about his re-election chances that he needs a new district created for his challenger. dold is worth 2.5-6 million according to his disclosure, not blair hull money, and with 3 kids who still have college educations to pay for (and we’re probably talking nescac expensive) plus the fact he’s living in a house his parents own, I’m not sure how much he’d self fund. quigley’s district picking up biggerts house is interesting. i always thought we’d see him go north. - Logic not emotion - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:35 pm: I can’t think of a better argument for changing how redistricting is done than exposing the details of how it is done. - Chi guy in Spr - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 2:59 pm: The GOP and it’s followers can complain all they want, but I assure you that were they in control, they would do the same. Spare us your crocodile tears. - Judy - No Peotone - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:04 pm: Sad thing is that if rural areas become part of a district that does not contain any other “rural” area - there will be little to no representation for those living in the area. Like Jackson’s district moving further into north-eastern Will County. The 2nd Congressional is so heavily democrat, the republican rural area would not have a voice. - Shore - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:14 pm: ethan hastert finishes 3rd or 2nd in a primary in a competitive district but lipinksi not only gets a district, he gets a 2nd one for his primary opponent? Republicans and good government people can’t complain about this. We had an election, we lost and we can only hope we can do what Pennsylvania democrats that got the short end in 2000 redistricting did when in our shoes-wait for them to screw up and then retake all the seats. - Chi guy in Spr - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:20 pm: @Shore. Spoken like an adult. Hats off to you. - 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:21 pm: ===lipinksi not only gets a district, he gets a 2nd one for his primary opponent?=== Very dumb. Lipinski is a pretty consistent vote against the President on important stuff. And he’s getting rewarded because…? The map ain’t soup yet, but if I was drawing it, Lipinski’s house would wind up in Bobby Rush’s district. OK, maybe Gutierrez’s district, but Lipinski wouldn’t be getting a pass from me. Draw the map for the long haul, not based on who is in the seat today. - 10th ward - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:24 pm: Bill Foster will run again…maybe in that new seat with east Dupage and elgin/ joliet. After he lost, he called me to say and thanks and he was keepin his options open. I was not a BIG$ supporter so he had some time on his hands to call a lot of people - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:37 pm: I welcome Mike Quigley as my Congressman. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:41 pm: And hope they extend the 5th Congressional District all the way up the lake front to Ridge Ave. But since Lake Michigan is currently the Eastern boundary of the district, I don’t think it can technically be expanded further East. However, just in case, I think Quigley is a pretty good swimmer. - DuPage Dem - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:48 pm: I understand Democrats exercising caution when drawing this map. It’s going to be in place for 10 years and you want to avoid letting Republicans win seats 4,6, etc… years from now when Obama isn’t on the ballot, but if all the Democrats go for is 9 seats and a tossup that is just being cowardly. It is easy to create at least 10 districts that went for Obama with over 63% that are pretty clean (7 Chicago, 3 Collar). Add to that a Metro-East district and a Quad-Cities district, I think they should go for at least 11 seats. I’d rather that they go for 12 or 13, but 11 would be ok. Also, many of these districts would likely get more Democratic over time as Latinos in Elgin, Aurora, and other areas reach voting age. Believe it or not, I think Illinois should change the way we draw districts, but over the last decade both Democrats and Republicans decided not to change the process. So for this cycle Democrats should use the redistricting power both parties opted not to change. - Because I say so - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 3:54 pm: I too was surprised that Lipinski seems to be getting taken care of. He has to be one, if not the most conservate Democrats in Congress. - D.P. Gumby - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:01 pm: I, too, will be disappointed if 9-8-1 is the best that can be drawn in what is truly a blue state. I am also disturbed by the notion that somehow some people are not represented when they are in the minority in their district and therefore the map is unfair. This argument was roundly hooted and dismissed by the Repub. during the Fla recount and by the SC in is convoluted opinion that stopped the vote counting. There is always someone who is “unrepresented” when one side is not successful in an election. - Skeeter - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:02 pm: Just hoping that Danny Davis’s district has Western Ave as a border (since he now considers that his eastern border). It would be nice for some of us to have a Congressman who knows we exist. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:05 pm: ===in what is truly a blue state=== I don’t recall any “Quinn wins a landslide outside of Cook” stories last year. - Ace Matson - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:06 pm: Republican primary voters in 2010 did this to themselves by nominating mediocrity in Brady, Walsh, and Dold. All ran to the right in the primary. Brady couldn’t even beat Quinn; and now Dold and walsh, who benefitted from a GOP landslide from swing districts, now have no appeal to a wider audience of voters. - Mapmaker - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:08 pm: === I too was surprised that Lipinski seems to be getting taken care of. He has to be one, if not the most conservate Democrats in Congress. === Unless I’m mistaken, Lipinski is Madigan’s Congressman. - Cincinnatus - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:33 pm: D. P. Gumby said, “I am also disturbed by the notion that somehow some people are not represented when they are in the minority in their district and therefore the map is unfair.” And yet Sections 2 & 5 of the Voting Rights Act exist, and drive the convoluted shapes of several districts in the US, including some here in Illinois. - wordslinger - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:40 pm: ===in what is truly a blue state=== Any GOPer who truly believes that just doesn’t want to work it. It’s mind-boggling to me. They’re building a map here to try to protect Dan Lipinski from a GOP challenge. Do you think there might be some GOP votes in that district, if anyone bothered to knock on a few doors? - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:40 pm: === I don’t recall any “Quinn wins a landslide outside of Cook” stories last year. === Cook County contains portions of 11 of Illinois’ 19 Congressional districts. AND last year’s election results were an outlier in many ways. Since the subject here is the Congressional map, one of the more compelling arguments for a Dem majority Congressional delegation is that Ronald Reagan was the last President to win Illinois. I think its pretty hard to argue that a state that’s pretty much bound to elect a Democrat for President every four years has been gerrymandered to give Democrats a Congressional advantage in this case. Especially when you compare it to what Republican statehouses have done in the South since 2000. - 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:44 pm: ===And yet Sections 2 & 5 of the Voting Rights Act exist, and drive the convoluted shapes of several districts=== That is to ensure minorities aren’t split up into several majority white districts. Are you advocating a return of segregation? Political parties aren’t protected classes of voters. Deal with it. - train111 - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:44 pm: 9-8-1 is the best that the Dems can probably do. Too many people are basing a prospective maps off of Obama’s results which are warped because he is a ‘favorite son’. Thy a 9-8-1 map with the Quinn-Brady results from 2 years ago!!! train111 - Cincinnatus - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:55 pm: 47th, I advocate nothing. I only indicate that D. P. Gumby’s concern is one being addressed in the Voting Rights Act. I do, however, share his concern. I believe it is the soft bigotry of low expectations that take race into account when drawing districts. Black people can represent whites, and whites can represent blacks. America was founded on equal opportunity, and many of these Voting Rights districts are founded on nothing more than equal outcomes. People in a community share much more than just their skin color, and convoluted districts can act to the detriment of many people. - DuPage Dem - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 4:56 pm: I absolutley agree that using Obama numbers as the sole data for drawing a map would be stupid, but you can create districts that also supported Kerry with strong numbers. The Kerry numbers aren’t great either because it was 6 years before the Census. Many of these districts have experienced huge growth from Latinos and young people from Cook County so they’ve become more Democratic. Democrats can do much better than 9-8-1. - Fed up - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:04 pm: Seems that even though Cook co lost a lot of population it is being allowed to keep all of it’s political seats. 10 more years of Crook co rule is a mistake. Plenty of decent Dems living outside cook co borders - shore - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:05 pm: bush’s father won illinois in 88. - Bush - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:05 pm: Bush I won Illinois in ‘88 - Vandalia - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:06 pm: Any idea what Shimkus’s district looks like? - k3 - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:06 pm: I wonder how far south Jackson’s district is going to go. He made an appearance in Kankakee last week, so there are thoughts it may extend all the way down here. - 47th Ward - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:19 pm: Well, it might be the hackneyed “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Or it might be the hard bigotry of Jim Crow. Either way, the Voting Rights Act doesn’t protect political parties. My read of DP Gumby’s comment was that Republicans who find themselves the minority in a district that now leans Democratic should stop whining. And vice versa. The Dr. George W. King Jr. quote notwithstanding, I don’t think DP was talking about the same minorities you are talking about. - wordslinger - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:25 pm: –I believe it is the soft bigotry of low expectations that take race into account when drawing districts.– LOL, very Gerson of you, but, I believe, the Supremes actually have some paper on the table that must be accounted for in drawing districts. I hope they’re not part of the “axis of evil.” - Cincinnatus - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 5:37 pm: 47th and Wordslinger, I hope that after this redistricting that the state considers some other method of drawing the map than this method. If we could all agree on what the definition of a “compact” district is, we could turn the whole mess over to a machine and let the competitive chips fall where they may. I won’t hold my breath. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 6:02 pm: @Cincinattus - Why in the world would you want “compactness” to be a guiding principle of a map? When a state legislative map blindly follows county, township, municipal and neighborhood boundaries that were arbitrarily drawn, you still end up with an arbitrary map. Moreover, by taking “politics” out of mapmaking and replacing it with a computer, you’re simply replacing partisanship with parochialism, and I’d argue its the latter not the former that is responsible for most of the gridlock in Springfield. If we had more lawmakers in Springfield like Julie Hamos, who represented the city and suburban Cook, Beth Coulson, who represented suburban Cook and the collar counties, we’d end up with a much better work product. - Bill - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 6:03 pm: They should put Lipinski and Kinzinger in the same district and let the two republicans fight it out. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 6:28 pm: Good one Bill! Why DO Democrats — atleast in the blagosphere — dislike Lipinski so much? And who do you think Republicans dislike the most in their Caucus? Ironically, I think it used to be Kirk, but now is it Tim Johnson? - Anonymous - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 6:31 pm: Cincinnatus - “America was founded on equal opportunity”? You’re kidding, right? Slavery? Black people enshrined in the constitution as 3/5ths of a person? Franchise for less than 10% of the population that was male, non-slave and land-owning. That was equal opportunity? But back to the topic at hand - only going for 9 Democratic seats is pretty wimpy. - DuPage Dem - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 7:44 pm: IL could yield 20% of the seats for a takeover of the House. I wonder what Durbin and the President think of this. - wordslinger - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 7:58 pm: Meh, it’s all over but the crying. For the GA, there’s going to be a way-cool map that maximizes Dem majorities. As far as Congress goes, I’m not sure that Madigan really cares. But it’s his party, and he earned it. Others could have taken it away, if they beat him, within the established rules, but they did not. Joe Walsh can drive his Mazzerrati all the way to Galena (sorry, can’t resist). But I come back to the notion that Illinois is some deep-blue state. I’ve lived in Oak Park for twenty plus years and worked downtown for even more. Cook County is not a bastion of Bolsheviks. Far from it, lot of real conservatives and potential Republican voters. Big Jim, Edgar, and to a lesser degree, Ryan, could sell a reasonable GOP message in Cook and the collars. But the current Illinois GOP leadership is tuned to Fox, which is good for making money off of 25% of the population, but not for building a majority. And the Illinois GOP is embarrassing. Hey dude, Pabst is leaving, let’s Twitter that we’re going to drink Pabst at this bar. That will show them Dems. Where are the grownups in that crew? Someone needs to take the bull by the horns and give the folks a viable alternative. For a while, you thought it was going to be the Senate GOP, but they choked. For crying out loud, the real GOP was founded here. The folks in Illinois haven’t changed that much. But some of the loudest voices in the Illinois GOP are off the charts. They have no one to blame but themselves. A couple of months ago, some alleged “conservative” chastised me for saying something nice about Sen. Lugar of Indiana. Dude, that’s not conservatism, that’s whack job zealotry. - Anon - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 8:37 pm: What’s the over under on the legal fee’s the remap will generate? I seem to remember the 1990 remap cost the CITY $20,000,000 in legal fees to change basically 6 precincts. - MrJM - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 9:26 pm: @Anon6:31 - Well, it was a kind of equal opportunity. – MrJM - just sayin' - Tuesday, May 17, 11 @ 10:11 pm: The people spoke last November and decided they wanted the Dems to draw the map. Deal with it. The IL GOP must change. It’s facing extinction in terms of being a relevant organization in Illinois. It can barely say that now. Next year the case gets much weaker. - Skeeter - Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 6:39 am: When this map is done it would be a good time for reform. Nobody knows who will draw the map in 10 years. These maps lead to more partisanship and more extremism. When all your voters are the same, there is no place for moderates. - Red Brownson - Wednesday, May 18, 11 @ 11:02 am: Where in this re-map does the 13th fit? Will Judy Biggert finally hav to fight hard to keep her seat? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.