Maps drive can do something big for Illinois

In her Daily Herald op-ed of July 22, Cynthia Canary, the new executive director of Independent Maps, makes an excellent case for meaningful change in Illinois via legislative redistricting reform.

For years, the Daily Herald and other responsible media outlets and reform groups have highlighted how Illinois politicians have gerrymandered their districts to keep themselves in power. (For a visual aid, go to elections.il.gov and view the representative map and description for winged-bat District 8. It stretches from Chicago's Northwest side to Southwest suburban La Grange along at least 28 streets and through or along 20 alleys). That the vast majority of state legislative "races" have only one (or only one viable) candidate makes most of our votes for them meaningless.

The only things lacking in Ms. Canary's editorial were concrete, and possibly dramatic, next steps. Perhaps her organization, the Daily Herald, the League of Women Voters, the Civic Federation, and other reform groups could unite behind a high-visibility agenda to transform Illinois voter anger into proactive public protest.

In Frank Capra's classic, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the citizens of a corrupt Heartland state take to the streets in ragtag, but heartfelt, protests against the all-powerful ruling machine. Although the pols use violence (and the controlled media) to effectively stop the street parades, a movement and an energy are generated which, indirectly at least, lead to a return of real democracy.

But truth can be even stranger than fiction. On Aug. 23, 2 million people joined hands in a 419-mile human chain across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to protest for independence from Soviet Russia. Within two years, all three were free republics.

Pick a day. Pick an event. Plaster them on traditional and social media with bipartisan and celebrity endorsements. Let's do something big for democracy in Illinois.

Chris Ellis

Palatine