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 The proposed amendment to Illinois' constitution sailed through
the House on a 105-7 vote and now must be approved by a three-fifths
majority in the state Senate by Friday in order to be placed on the
Nov. 8 general election ballot.
Since Democrats controlled the state legislature and the governor’s
office after the 2010 census, they won the once-a-decade right to
draw new legislative district boundaries. The process enabled the
party to build super-majorities in both the Senate and House.
“The power we presently have is only to protect incumbents,” said
Representative Jack Franks, a Democrat from Chicago’s far northwest
suburbs who sponsored the amendment.
 Republican Governor Bruce Rauner campaigned to take away legislative
redistricting responsibilities from the General Assembly but instead
backs a different proposal.
Under Franks’ plan, the Illinois Supreme Court would appoint an
eight-member redistricting commission to oversee the drawing of 118
House districts and 59 state Senate districts beginning with the
2022 elections.
Critics disliked how Franks' amendment mutes the General Assembly’s
voice in the process.
“What’s dangerous about what we’re doing (is that) we as a
legislative branch are ceding our authority to a co-equal branch of
government,” said Representative Christian Mitchell, a Chicago
Democrat who voted against the amendment.
If the plan clears the Senate, the result could be two competing
redistricting proposals on the fall ballot, a scenario Rauner has
warned would confuse voters.
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The initiative Rauner backs is being pushed by a bipartisan
coalition that includes Republican former Governor Jim Edgar and
former White House Chief of Staff William Daley, brother and son of
two of Chicago’s longest-serving Democratic mayors.
That group, known as Independent Maps, proposes a system where a
bi-partisan, 11-member commission would be stocked through a random
and public screening process overseen by the state auditor general
from a pool of 100 finalists.
(Reporting by Dave McKinney; Editing by David Gregorio)
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