Illinois should partner with a red state to fight gerrymandering
Critics were unhappy that Gov. J.B. Pritzker didn’t mention the issue of gerrymandering in his State of the State speech Wednesday in Springfield. Taking partisanship out of how our political maps are drawn was one of the signature promises of his 2018 campaign, and it’s key, some believe, to reducing corruption and extremism among lawmakers.
Thursday, Pritzker urged everyone not to make too much of the omission, telling reporters at a news conference that he remains committed to the idea of “compact, contiguous districts,” and that he will “veto any unfair map that gets presented” for his signature after lines are redrawn based on the results of the 2020 census.
One definition of a politically “fair” map is one that results in a balance of power in the state legislature and the U.S. congressional delegation that reflects the partisan divide in that state. If roughly 55% of voters in any state are Democrats, then roughly 55% of the seats should be won by Democratic candidates, for example.
Easier said than done. Mapmakers have to take into account civil rights laws that guarantee majority-minority districts, and they often strive to keep natural communities of interest together. Even those with the purest of motives can end up drawing crazily shaped districts that may or may not seem “fair” to certain constituencies or governors.
But if it could be done in Illinois to be fair to Republicans, should it? Those who study the issue of gerrymandering estimate that, nationwide, the current political maps give the Republican Party at least 20 more seats in Congress than their actual voting strength ought to give them. Research published in 2017 showed North Carolina had three more Republican seats in Congress than it should if the state delegation mirrored the electorate. Republicans in Michigan had two more seats than they deserved.
Meanwhile, Illinois had one more Democratic seat than a “fair” map would yield.
It’s a little much, then, to ask Illinois Democrats to unilaterally do the right thing, to lead by example and hope that Republicans in North Carolina, Michigan, Florida or any of the other 15 red states with more out-of-whack maps than Illinois will do the same.
So let’s double up! Pritzker should choose a Republican-skewed state of more or less the same size — Ohio, Georgia or North Carolina would do — and form a bistate, bipartisan remap commission to come up with a uniform set of policies and practices to overhaul how districts are drawn in both states.
Write these into a law that contains a provision that the changes will be enacted only if they’re also enacted on the same day in the companion state. A further provision would hold that the changes will be automatically repealed if one state amends them without legislative approval from the other state.
I’m inspired to suggest this form of interdependency by the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, a proposal to eliminate the possibility — which turned into a grim reality in 2000 and 2016 — that a candidate can win the presidency but lose the national popular vote due to the undemocratic vagaries of the Electoral College.
States that participate in the compact have agreed to award all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote, no matter which candidate may have won the vote in their particular state. They can do so because Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution says electors can be appointed “in such manner as the legislature … may direct.”
But under the rules of legislation that enable the compact, the agreement will only go into effect when the number of states that have passed it control a majority of votes in the Electoral College.
Otherwise, obviously, it’s pointless.
So far, Illinois, 14 other states and the District of Columbia have entered the compact. They represent 196 electoral votes, 74 shy of the majority.
If more than a dozen states can agree on something as radical as neutering the Electoral College, can’t we find at least one state to partner with us on fair maps?
Disunity at the State of Union
In comparatively calmer times two years ago, I argued for civility at the State of the Union speech, saying that it’s better for congressional Democrats to sit in furious silence as President Donald Trump inflates his accomplishments, slanders his foes and tramples the truth, rather than to create a spectacle by boycotting the speech or walking out just as it begins.
My thinking was that any such gesture would backfire — make the Democrats look small and sore and petulant, like that
Republican congressman who shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during the 2009 State of the Union address.
This year I’m not so sure. Democrats in attendance will be subjected Tuesday night not only to Trump’s typical narcissistic mendacity — he’s now claiming again that Mexico will pay for the border wall, if you’re keeping track of his lies — but in all likelihood some of his trademark braying about the impeachment “hoax,” along with claims that his acquittal equals or will equal vindication.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ought to draw a line in the sand before Trump speaks: He can puff himself all he wants and build rhetorical castles in the air the way every president does, but one self-congratulatory or defiant mention of the impeachment, and her caucus gets up and quietly walks out.
They don’t have to be there, after all. They can read the speech later if there’s anything of value in it and not serve as silent props.
Yes, an impeachment-triggered walkout would be rude and provocative. But the last two years have suggested that those are actually assets in American politics these days.
Re: Tweets
The winner of this week’s reader poll to select the funniest tweet was “It’s smart of John Bolton to hide evidence in a place where the president will never be able to find it — book,” by TBS program host Samantha Bee (@FullFrontalSamB).
The poll appears at chicago tribune.com/zorn, and you can receive an alert when it’s posted by signing up for the Change of Subject email newsletter at chi cagotribune.com/newsletters.