Daley, LaHood discuss rebooted ‘fair maps’ campaign in Illinois
[September 03, 2025]
By Peter Hancock
SPRINGFIELD — Two veteran federal officials from Illinois are
relaunching an effort to amend the Illinois Constitution and end
partisan gerrymandering in state legislative districts.
Bill Daley, a Democrat from Chicago who served as secretary of commerce
under President Bill Clinton, and Ray LaHood, a former Republican member
of Congress from Peoria who served as transportation secretary under
President Barack Obama, hope they can succeed where a similar effort in
2016 failed.
The two spoke with Capitol News Illinois for an episode of the Capitol
Cast podcast. The interview is also available on CNI’s YouTube channel.
“We had a very, rather complicated, process that we put forward to the
voters, if it had gotten on the ballot,” Daley said of the 2016
campaign, which he actively supported. “What we learned from that, and
looking at the Supreme Court decision and looking at prior cases, (was)
that we should simplify and not be as complicated as we became in 2016.
We have a plan that’s simple. We feel very confident that the courts
will approve this.”
The 2016 effort
In 2016, supporters of the “Fair Maps” initiative gathered enough
signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to establish
an 11-member commission to redraw legislative maps after each decennial
census. Seven of those members would have been chosen by a panel
appointed by the auditor general, while the other four would have been
appointed by legislative leaders.
But before the proposal got on the ballot, opponents of the measure –
including allies of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan – filed
a court challenge and the Illinois Supreme Court struck it down on
technical grounds.
The court ruled that under the Illinois Constitution, citizen-initiated
amendments must be limited to dealing with “structural and procedural
subjects contained in Article IV” of the constitution, which deals with
the legislature. By assigning new duties to the auditor general, the
court said, the proposed amendment went beyond what is allowed in a
citizen-initiated amendment and, therefore, was unconstitutional.
That case was filed by a group called People’s Map whose chairman, John
Hooker, was an executive at the utility giant Commonwealth Edison. In
July, Hooker was sentenced to 1 ½ years in prison and ordered to pay a
$500,000 fine after being convicted as part of the “ComEd Four” for his
role in bribing Madigan with jobs and contracts for his political allies
in exchange for legislation favorable to the utility.
‘Picking your voters’
Daley and LaHood said the problem that existed in 2016 still exists
today. That is, legislative maps are drawn in a way that protects the
majority party.
Currently, that’s the Democratic Party, which holds 61% of the seats in
the Illinois House and 68% of the seats in the state Senate, despite the
fact that Democrats, on average, have won only about 55% of the vote in
recent statewide elections.
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Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood joined former
Commerce Secretary Bill Daley on the latest episode of the Capitol
Cast podcast to discuss their renewed “fair maps” push.
“When the Republicans had the majority, they did the same thing that
Democrats did,” Daley said. “Whether they did it as well or not, that
can be debated. But this idea of picking your voters to maintain
control, whichever party it is.”
The new proposal calls for establishing a 12-member “Legislative
Redistricting Commission,” whose members would be appointed by the top
Democrat and Republican in each legislative chamber. Each leader would
appoint one member of the General Assembly and two members who are not
lawmakers.
The commission would be barred from using voters’ party registration or
voting history data when drawing maps. Districts also would be required
to be compact, contiguous and drawn along existing county and municipal
lines where possible.
Congress not affected
The proposal would not, however, change the method of drawing
congressional district maps, a topic that has made national news in
recent weeks when the Texas Legislature held a special session to redraw
that state’s congressional maps to create five more Republican-leaning
districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Daley and LaHood said the proposal is limited to state legislative
redistricting because citizen-initiated amendments are limited to
structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV of the state
constitution. Congressional redistricting is a power conferred on state
legislatures from the U.S. Constitution.
Neither Daley nor LaHood would predict whether changing the mapmaking
process would alter the makeup of the General Assembly significantly or
change the kinds of legislation that passes through it. But LaHood —
pointing to states like Iowa and California, which have adopted
independent mapmaking commissions — said drawing fair maps is important
for individuals and communities.
“They’re not splitting up neighborhoods, they’re not splitting up
communities, they’re not splitting up counties,” he said. “These maps
are reflective of where people live and having their friends and
neighbors as their representatives … and so I think in states where they
have citizens drawing the maps and keeping friends and neighbors
together, the voters are pretty happy.”
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
