advertisement

Since courts won’t, voters must seize keys to Congressional map

In its ruling Thursday upholding the new congressional boundaries in Illinois, a three-judge panel conceded that the map was cynically drawn.

“We agree that the crafting of the adopted map was a blatant political move to increase the number of Democratic congressional seats,” the panel said in issuing its paradoxical ruling.

Republicans who sued to overturn the map, the panel said, had failed to prove that the map discriminated against Hispanics, the grounds that had been used to bring the legal case.

What a sad day. What a reinforcement of cynicism about government and politicians. What a disappointment.

We understand that courts must rule on the basis of law and that what’s right isn’t always what’s legally protected. Especially when it’s self-interested politicians who are creating the laws. So we don’t so much blame the court as we blame Gov. Pat Quinn and the Democrats in the state Legislature who passed this affront to the citizenry in the first place.

Our outrage is not based on partisanship. We’re not on a campaign to defend the Republican majority in the U.S. House or to block Democrats from election. It is based on the vested interest all of us have in republican democracy and the blatant political manipulation every decade that is designed to circumvent the voter. Everyone should be upset about this, whether they are Republican, Democrat or independent.

In June, we wrote about this and talked about the assumptions we all make, the danger that is inherent when we just take for granted that our republic is controlled by politicians rather than by the electorate. In reality, we’ve all come to assume this. We’ve all come to assume that the maps are drawn to favor the party in power. The danger is not in the assumption but in the acceptance.

Something must be done about this. Several more objective processes have been designed to do the mapping that takes place every 10 years. Some of those processes were discussed in government reform measures taken to Springfield two years ago when the Blagojevich scandal hit the fan. We endorsed them as did many others. But despite the reforms that took place at that time, the remapping process — one of the fundamental linchpins of our republic — was not reformed. Politicians did not want to give that up because they did not want to give up the keys.

As we said in June, if we allow a process that enables the party in power to impose clear advantages to help it maintain its grip on power, we are contradicting our own liberty.

The process must be reformed.

Those who stand in the way must be held accountable.

If we love liberty, we must take the remapping process out of the hands of politicians.

Quinn signs Congressional map; GOP plans lawsuit

Our liberty's at stake in redistricting

Federal judges uphold Democrat-drawn congressional map