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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
House Speaker Michael Madigan cares most about three House votes: The votes every two years for both the next Speaker and the House rules; and the vote every ten years on the new state legislative district maps.
But, prying control of those maps away from Speaker Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton is next to impossible, as proponents of a constitutional amendment to do so have found. Drawing the new map is the ultimate way to reward your friends and punish your enemies. (Keep in mind here that I am NOT talking about congressional maps. That should be part of a national solution.)
Anyway, when I watched video of JB Pritzker pressed by reporters in Chicago about how much he really supported a truly independent remap process, it didn’t seem to me that he was willing to go to the wall for his beliefs.
We’ve seen this movie before. Former Gov. Pat Quinn talked a good game about reforming the state legislative map-making process and then signed the remap legislation drafted by Madigan and Cullerton.
I decided to test Pritzker’s resolve by asking him, and the rest of the gubernatorial candidates, whether they’d veto any legislative redistricting legislation that wasn’t truly independent. Pritzker pledged his veto while Chris Kennedy and Sen. Daniel Biss both said they wouldn’t take such a pledge. (Gov. Bruce Rauner and Rep. Jeanne Ives also said they’d veto.)
Kennedy and Biss are just flat-out wrong here.
A governor cannot cajole the House Speaker and the Senate President into giving up control of “their” maps to people they don’t know and trust. Quinn tried that and totally failed. The only way the leaders will take this step is if they believe there is a credible chance that the Republicans could draw the new maps.
How could that happen? If a governor vetoes the remap bill and he’s not overridden and the resulting process winds up deadlocked (as it always has before), that’ll force a drawing out of Abe Lincoln’s hat to decide which party gets control.
The map-making powers aren’t completely about the leaders maintaining numerical control of their respective chambers — although building in lots of extra partisan cushion with gerrymandering is most certainly right at the top.
This is also about their own districts, particularly for Madigan. Let somebody else draw the map and he might wind up in a district with few precincts in his beloved 13th Ward. He lives close to Chicago’s southwestern border, so his new district could wind up being heavily suburban and more anti-Madigan. Who really knows? And that unanswerable question is the whole point of Madigan making sure anything independent is kept as far away as possible from drawing the next map.
Sen. Biss dismissed my question by claiming that the Illinois Constitution puts legislators, their staffs and their allies into the map-making process. Actually, the Constitution just says the General Assembly has to pass a new redistricting bill every ten years. The legislature can always pass a bill to set up an independent remap system, free from involvement by the powers that be.
Illinois doesn’t need a constitutional amendment to have an independent map-drawing process.
“Instead of pledging to veto,” Biss wrote, “as governor, I would advocate for a true independent redistricting process.” Right. Just like Pat Quinn. You’ll get what you’ll get, and you’ll eat it and you’ll like it.
Chris Kennedy came up with the surprisingly lame excuse that taking a pledge to veto a district map which isn’t independently drawn “fails to take into account the situation which may exist at a time of passage.”
Um, huh? What “situation” might that be? If you believe that voters should choose their legislators and not the other way around, you gotta be willing to go to bat for them. This isn’t like holding the budget hostage, which can actually get people killed. This is about recognizing when you’ve got the upper hand in a purely political battle.
It just seems weird to me that the two guys who are currently strutting around the state loudly demanding that Madigan step down as party chairman are so loathe to upset the Velvet Hammer on this topic.
At the same time, a candidate who seems afraid to even utter Madigan’s name is willing to say he’ll back up his words with deeds in order to challenge one of Speaker Madigan’s most powerful weapons. Hey, you may not trust Pritzker to actually follow through, but at least we have him on record, unlike those other two guys.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 9:45 am
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Am I wrong to read JB’s position as tacit acceptance from Madigan that some kind of independent map structure is needed? I mean, I’ve never bought the idea that JB is just MJM with a bigger suit size, but I also can’t see JB poking MJM on one of the Big 3 votes.
Comment by Arsenal Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 9:54 am
“Actually, the Constitution just says the General Assembly has to pass a new redistricting bill every ten years. The legislature can always pass a bill to set up an independent remap system, free from involvement by the powers that be.”
I did not know that so does that not beg the question to not only Governor candidates, but to Legislative candidates: Would you support such a commission and vote for its results?
Illinois doesn’t need a constitutional amendment to have an independent map-drawing process.
Comment by DuPage Saint Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:01 am
===tacit acceptance from Madigan===
lol
No.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:01 am
Rich, I would tend to go with Biss and Kennedy on this one. The map is the absolute most important bill to the leaders that they will pass in 2021, and the importance of that to the governor is tertiary. So if the Governor is able to extract other demands out of the leaders, then why not go with that instead of pledging a veto on the front end?
Comment by Juice Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:11 am
It is possible a US supreme court ruling could have an effect although I think our map may pass muster based on the metric they were using. It may just apply to federal maps.
Comment by Not a Billionaire Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:13 am
===then why not go with that===
That’s the Pat Quinn route. Fat lot of good it did us.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:15 am
If Rauner wins this fall, you better believe that the legislature will pass an Independent Redistricting proposal. LOL
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:18 am
I don’t think anti-gerrymandering for congressional districts needs to wait for a federal solution. I don’t think our votes should be marginalized because voters in other states are being marginalized as well. Let’s clean up our own mess.
Comment by lake county democrat Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:20 am
““Actually, the Constitution just says the General Assembly has to pass a new redistricting bill every ten years. The legislature can always pass a bill to set up an independent remap system, free from involvement by the powers that be.””
Fantastic idea.
Are you saying that any final work product (new map) of this “independent process” would not have to be voted on by the GA, or signed by the Governor? Hmm. Well that’s certainly arguable in court.
Comment by walker Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:21 am
Did PQ make any kind of meaningful demand from them? There were a couple of small requests at the end, but generally not really.
Comment by Juice Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:27 am
Pat Quinn sold out reform in general - he had a blue ribbon panel of experts issue recommendations and then cut a deal with Madigan to throw them under the bus (though a few were passed). Quinn is a horrifying example of how power corrupts: the guy was a reform gadfly his whole career, has this unbelievable opportunity fall into his lap to draw a line in the sand and demand seismic reform, and opts to be just another pol. But hey, it got him re-elected once so at least he got something back for it.
Comment by lake county democrat Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:36 am
So Pritzker took the anti-Madigan position and Biss and Kennedy took the pro-Madigan position. Seems like the Biss/Kennedy people are very confused and trying to figure out why JB didn’t just do what the Speaker wanted him to do.
Comment by Anon0091 Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 10:57 am
If you really believe JB will fight for an independent redistricting committee, if he ever got elected, I’ve got some “spare” toilets to sell you.
Comment by Soapbox Derby Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 11:26 am
Soapbox,
JB has supported Independent Maps and other Reform causes to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars for more than a decade. So yea, you might want to believe him on this one.
Comment by Anon0091 Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 12:16 pm
==Are you saying that any final work product (new map) of this “independent process” would not have to be voted on by the GA, or signed by the Governor? Hmm. Well that’s certainly arguable in court. ==
If the GA voted to pass the boundary drawing off to an independent process, they would be hard pressed not to pass the map that process produced. How would they explain that vote?
Comment by Pot calling kettle Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 12:46 pm
===Are you saying that any final work product (new map) of this “independent process” would not have to be voted on by the GA, or signed by the Governor?===
Um, no. They would vote on it up or down.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 12:47 pm
@ Anon 0091
JB spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars” (over a decade) supporting independent maps and “other reform” isn’t a very large “tune” for a guy who’s spending nearly that much every day on his election effort.
Comment by Soapbox Derby Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 12:54 pm
No better symbol of how one man’s vain fight for power impacts millions.
Comment by Texas Red Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 2:03 pm
Great work by Rich.
To the Post,
My real fear now, after 3 years of Rauner isn’t the map going one way or another or Raunerites…
My fear is Rauner will hold the state hostage for unreasonable demands in a map that no opposition party would ever agree to and it would lead to further damage that Rauner doesn’t care that it’s happening.
Rauner wants Raunerite districts, not Republican districts.
See: Dunkin, Ken.
Rauner signing a map might happen after a Rauner budget gets signed… which has yet to happen.
Think on that.
Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 2:53 pm
Maybe we should just round robin the map. D draws the first district, R draws the second, D the third, and so on. There would need to be some rules to ensure not only that a district is compact and contiguous but also does not preclude the next district from that as well.
It would certainly be an interesting thought exercise to see how that would play out. There would certainly be a disincentive to punitively draw a district since it risks retaliation.
Comment by thechampaignlife Monday, Mar 12, 18 @ 3:05 pm