Illinois is a corrupt, bankrupt state that has been run by Democrats for decades. Gerrymandering has been a big help to keep them in power. A group called Fair Maps has a good following as the right alternative to this. I don't think so, and this is what I wrote to the newspaper.
The Sun-Times ran a major opinion piece (April 7) pushing for the Fair Maps Amendment "to protect your vote." I strongly agree the gerrymandering must be ended, but I don't believe this is the solution to the problem. I went to the website to see be able to address each of their guiding principles.
The issue of gerrymandering is finally getting more attention. I am concerned that in our hurried efforts to remove politics from the redistricting process, we are merely changing the form of the politics, not its presence.
This essay will look at the eight criteria used by Fair Maps to guide their districting policies:
1) COMPLY WITH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
They say that their policies must comply with the U.S. Constitution, but then they flesh out what they think it means, but it isn’t.
They are correct when they say that “districts should be populated equally, as nearly as is practicable.” But they say also that “[a]ll persons -- regardless of age, citizenship, immigration status, ability or eligibility to vote – should be accurately counted through the Census.”
The Constitution doesn’t say a lot about the census, but it does have that famous 3/5 clause. The slave states had a lot of people who were not citizens. They were slaves. Our Founders did not want these non-citizens to be counted equally as the citizens, because they saw this as giving more representatives to a state than it should have. So it is not enough just to say that every person should be accurately counted
Now, of course, they did not have millions of people in our country illegally, so they didn’t give that a thought. But they did have millions of permanent legal residents who were not citizens whom they believed should not be counted as equal to a citizen. Should we assume that illegal residents should be counted equally as citizens when considering a state’s representation in Congress? The clear, obvious answer is no.
But what about within a state? A number of states don’t really care how many permanent non-legal residents it has. Why? Probably the biggest reason is that the federal government gives money to the states based on population. Illinois has been losing residents for years. It wants the tally of those who are in this country illegally included so it can get more federal money.
So whatever happens with the census, Illinois has no intention of following the example of the U.S. Constitution.
2. COMPLY WITH FEDERAL AND STATE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
One of the goals of those who oppose gerrymandering is to get rid of districts that are clearly drawn to get a desired political end. These districts are generally contorted strange shapes that shout ‘manipulation’ even to the most casual observer. Under Fair Maps, this practice will continue.
Under Fair Maps, districts must be drawn “to create majority-minority, coalition, and influence districts.” So those who draw districts apparently won’t know who is Republican and who is Democrat, but they will know every other possible demographic, and then they will decide which ones are important enough to create coalitions or which qualify for majority-minority status.
The obvious main groups will be Hispanics and blacks. But what about Polish, Greeks, Germans, Muslims, Jews, evangelicals, Koreans, and Chinese? Now blacks have been noted as being heavily Democratic, as well as a number of other demographics. A Democratic legislation couldn’t draw a more partisan district as Fair Maps is providing, though all under the guise of voting rights.
Gerrymandering also uses a tactic where in one instance it may try to put as many of its opponents into as few districts as possible to minimize their representatives. In other cases, they might divide their opponents into as many districts as possible, again for the same reason. It all depends on how many ‘opponents’ they have and where they are situated.
When it comes to minority representation, I think it is a mistake to assume that it is always in their best interest to put as many of them as you can in one district, thinking this will guarantee a minority representative. That community might be better represented by having a sizable minority in a number of districts rather than a majority in one. They might have their one representative, but they might need more voices to get anything done.
But what does voting rights even mean? It means you have the right to vote, if you are a citizen. It assumes too that the election is not rigged, where the district was drawn where one political party has a decided advantage. To say that a district must be draw so that a particular ethnicity will win the election is not a voting right. And if certain ethnicities strongly tend to vote one party, then how is a Fair Map better than a gerrymandered one?
3. COMPRISE AND UPHOLD A NON-PARTISANSHIP PROCESS
This process will rely on mapping consultants, software, and diverse decision-makers who reflect a broad range of viewpoints.
These people will create districts according to their vision of what an ideal district should look like. They may not be elected Republicans or Democrats, but we should not think that they don’t have strong beliefs in how things should be done in our country or in our state. Their districts will be as contorted as the ones they replace. Will they be better? I see no reason to be confident of that.
4. MAXIMIZE VOTER CHOICE, ELECTORAL CANDIDACY AND COMPETITIVENESS
So what exactly would this look like? On the one hand, they have already said that they want majority-minority districts so they can elect these same minority candidates, so if you live in those districts and are not of that minority, they’ve already stacked the deck against you, assuming, of course, that each ethnic group has its own unique needs that only another person of that same ethnic group recognizes, understands, and will fight for.
There are still some communities left that are somewhat homogeneous, like some of Chicago’s wealthier suburbs or parts of Chicago itself. Will Fair Maps divide those communities up and share parts with other districts to make them more competitive? Will Fair Maps recognize a community as all or majority white and keep them that way or will that be considered unfair?
What is the goal of a competitive district? An equal number of Republicans and Democrats. so at any time half the residents will not feel like their representative represents them? A competitive district, as in an equally divided one, invites corruption, because you will get closer races, and the temptation to do more to win will always be there.
If a district is drawn to be non-competitive, like my Congressional District currently is, which skips a few towns to include a town on the other side of them, then we agree, that is wrong. But it is equally wrong to take an area like an entire town and divide it up for the sake of being competitive. Rural areas tend to be conservative, and urban areas tend to be Democratic. Will they divide up a Democratic city like spokes of a wheel to include a enough conservative suburban voters to make it competitive?
5. RECOGNIZE AND PRESERVE COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST “The process should give consideration to true communities of interest. To the extent possible, but secondary to the protection of voting rights, populations with common social, ethnic or economic interests and/or shared political and geographic boundaries should have unified representation.”
This doesn’t make sense. How can having “populations with common social, ethnic or economic interests and/or shared political and geographic boundaries” with unified representation somehow be contrary to the protection of voting rights? The definition of voting rights here is essentially rigging an election as much as a gerrymandered one. The fact that it’s a person’s race that is involved instead of a political party doesn’t make it any less nefarious.
6. ACCURATELY INCLUDE PERMANENT RESIDENCE OF ALL ILLINOISANS
I don’t see how this is related to the matter of a fair map. It looks more like something that was added to help the passage of this amendment. Illinois wants to have the largest possible number in the census both to protect the number of Congressional representatives the state has as well as the amount of federal money that will come back to the state.
7. COMPRISE AND UPHOLD A TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE PROCESS “The process must be transparent and accountable. Meetings of decision-makers, and their legal, political and mapping consultants, must be open and accessible to the public to the greatest extent possible.”
So how is this helpful? How many people are going to take off work to sit in on a meeting here? How many meetings will they be able to attend? How will they even know what is going on? Will every member be wired for sound?
8. PROVIDE FOR OPEN, FULL, AND MEANINGFUL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION This, like the last point, is of limited value. However they do it, only a very small handful of the public will participate. All the more reason that the principles behind the project be right. And I would say that they are not.
Any demographic, whether it be age, education, income, employment status, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, can be used to draw a voting district that can favor one political party over another or even certain impending legislation or societal trends.
When we start thinking that all these demographics have competing needs and political agendas, then I think our government has gone too far in micromanaging the people. We have lost the unity our country was built on: E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. Now we would be: ex unius multi. Out of one, many. We would be many countries trying to live in the same place. The end result of this remains to be seen, but Fair Maps will not help us either in uniting our country or solving the problem of political redistricting.
