Add suburban voices to the remap

Daily Herald Editorial Board

Next week escalates the once-a-decade political farce called the redistricting process.

Democrats who control nearly everything in Springfield approved a plan for the process they dubbed the “Redistricting Transparency and Public Participation Act.”

Senate Democrats start public hearings on drawing new political boundaries with 2010 census data Monday in Chicago, with others scheduled for Springfield, Peoria, Kankakee and Cicero.

Census figures show most of the population growth in Illinois has been in the Northwest and West suburbs, but there will be no hearings here. Senate Republicans complained about that.

“I hope that is not a precursor for how the Democrats treat suburbia in drawing the map,” state Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican, told Daily Herald staff writer Jeff Englehardt.

We’ve watched these processes many times over the decades. Let’s quit kidding around. The process is a charade and openness is not a byproduct. We’d be surprised if several versions of maps designed to do whatever is legally possible to preserve Democratic majority power weren’t already drawn. And again, no fooling. If Republicans were in the majority, we’re confident they’d be doing the same thing. This is all about raw political power, controlling and preserving it at any cost.

The hearings should be held in every region of the state after both major parties have drawn maps they’d share and after the population data have been shared with citizens who could develop their own maps. Then there should be debate. Or voters should pick people who are as outside of politics as possible to draw the maps. OK, now we’re dreaming.

Still, somehow it is managed differently in other states. In Alaska, there’s a redistricting board. Board members just launched a website and offer an e-mail list to keep citizens informed of their activities. In Ohio a few years ago, the Redistricting Commission actually held a public competition that gave any resident the chance to draw a map using 2000 census data that would meet the federally required standards of compactness, competitiveness and keeping together concentrations of minority or community groups. The result? Fourteen plans were submitted, three were disqualified and three were judged to have met the goals.

It can be done. Some good government groups tried to collect voter signatures last year to put a question on the ballot asking if residents here wanted to try a different, hopefully fairer, process. They should try again. And all of us should sign on and support them. The Senate hearings to come, and those to be held by a House panel as well, are nothing more than an exercise in exhaling air. Nothing will change until residents throughout the state act up and demand it.