 The state will lose one of its spots in the U.S. House of
Representatives because of a national population that is shifting to
the South and West, according to officials at the U.S. Census
Bureau.Starting with the 2012 election, the 12,830,632 Illinois
residents will be divided between 18 instead of 19 people in the
House, meaning each representative will have a larger base to serve.
"It always hurts to lose representation. It hurts in two ways.
One is the loss of a House seat, obviously. It's a loss of a voice
and a loss of someone being concerned exclusively about Illinois.
Secondarily, it hurts by one less vote in the Electoral College,"
said John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public
Policy Institute.
The announcement about the change in congressional seats came
during a news conference Tuesday to announce the first official
population figures from the 2010 census.
Every decade states must redraw their political geography based
on the new census figures. Each state starts with one House seat;
the remaining 385 are distributed based on population.
Illinois maintained its place as the fifth most populous state,
and the number of people calling Illinois home grew. But the state's
rate of growth since 2000 -- 3.3 percent -- wasn't large enough to
maintain all of its House seats.
The Legislature and the governor will be tasked with carving up
the political landscape this spring. Historically, members of
Congress have concocted maps that protect incumbents and passed
those maps down to the General Assembly for approval.
"The leadership will almost certainly look at the least senior
members. … They are the people most in danger because traditionally
it's been a very junior member without seniority that gets
sacrificed," Jackson said.
David Phelps was the congressman served up on the altar of
politics in 2000.
Following the millennial census, it was determined that Illinois
would have to drop a congressional district. During the redraw,
Phelps' district was split between the 15th and the 19th districts,
with its locus of voters, Decatur, worked into the 17th District.
"The congressional delegation decided, in effect, to dump
congressman David Phelps from southern Illinois. They drew a map
that was extremely difficult for Phelps to get re-elected," said
Mike Lawrence, a longtime Statehouse reporter and retired director
of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
Phelps is a right-leaning Democrat, but those conservative
credentials weren't enough for him to survive the 2002 election. He
lost to the current representative of the reincarnated 19th
District, Republican John Shimkus.
"We don't deserve to have little narrow lines through here and go
all the way up 300 miles this way and 200 that way just so you can
convince someone they can't win and get the (voter) registration
numbers for your party so your candidate can be protected," said
Phelps, who currently serves as the assistant secretary of the
Illinois Department of Transportation.
Phelps said he hopes that this time districts are drawn to best
serve the people of Illinois, not its politicians.
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Despite the tradition of drawing lines that protect incumbents,
Lawrence said this year could be different. Three legislative
Democratic incumbents lost their races against Republicans, giving
the GOP 10 seats. At the same time, the Democrats control the
Legislature and the governorship for the first time since the
Illinois Constitution was adopted in 1970.
"The Legislature is dominated by Democrats, and Democrats may be
more interested in regaining some power within the Illinois
congressional delegation than they are in accommodating incumbents
from both parties," Lawrence said.
Illinois isn't alone in losing spots in Congress. Neighbors Iowa
and Missouri will be down one seat each come 2012, and another
Midwestern state, Ohio, will be down two seats.
States gaining seats are all located in the South and West, such
as Florida, Texas and Nevada, reflecting the shifting population in
the country.
"The trend is growth in seats for Western and Southern states and
a tendency to lose seats in the Midwest and Northeastern states. In
fact, since 1940 there's been a net shift of 79 seats to the South
and West," said Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau.
Losing a seat this year isn't that big a deal, according to
Lawrence. The state still has the second most powerful U.S. senator,
Democrat Dick Durbin, and an Illinoisan in the White House. What
should be of concern is the fact that Illinois is now down from a
peak of 24 representatives to just 18, Lawrence said.
"There's been a steady decline in representation in the House. I
don't think the loss of a seat in any one year is significant, but I
do think over time, if we continue to lose seats, it will be a more
significant factor," he said.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By ANDREW THOMASON]
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