Finger becomes a fist in DuPage remap debacle

Here’s the lead we were tempted to use on Robert Sanchez’s story in Thursday’s paper:

“DuPage County Board members have given the finger to potential candidate Laura Fitzpatrick.”

A little crude, but it does reflect, symbolically and practically, exactly what redistricting shenanigans were attempted on the Lombard trustee.

I’m referring, of course, to the talk of DuPage County government this week, the notorious “Fitzpatrick Finger.”

The county is drawing its new boundary maps, as required by federal law every 10 years, reflecting the shift in the county’s population during that time. The end result is that each of the county board’s six districts must have the same number of residents to elect their three representatives.

It’s a mostly tedious process that draws precious few observers to the committee meetings and public hearings. But this week, things suddenly got interesting.

I suspect we’ll never truly know who cooked up the finger idea, but here’s what we know: Depending on who you believe, one of two District 2 board members — Pat O’Shea or Brien Sheahan — drew a map with a narrow swath of land that moved a strip of Lombard into District 4, which mainly comprises Glen Ellyn, Glendale Heights and Wheaton. And, oh, the eastern edge of that swath ended exactly one block after taking in the home of Fitzpatrick, who missed getting elected to county board District 2 three years ago by fewer than 200 votes.

But the finger soon became a fist. For reasons not completely obvious (these things aren’t exactly done in full view of the public, and the gerrymandering of potential candidates isn’t announced), it was decided that more of Lombard needed to be siphoned into District 4, so the new boundaries were extended in a southerly fashion, past Roosevelt Road, putting perhaps a few thousand Lombard voters in a new district.

This would not be helpful to O’Shea, a fixture in Lombard who usually wins re-election handily. But it would benefit Sheahan, a board member who lives in Elmhurst, on the eastern side of the district. (For those of you who really care about the intricacies of this remap process, two maps are now published on the county’s website.)

The county board has until July 1 to approve its new map, but with two officially on the table, a vote theoretically could come any time.

Ironically, or at least coincidentally, as the Republicans of DuPage County (all but three members of the county board are with the GOP) hash out a map that could determine their political future, Republicans at the state level are fighting a decidedly different type of battle. They already have sued to force Democrats to share what they’re up to with the new maps for state House and Senate districts, and as the answers have leaked out, the GOP is not fond of what the Democratic majority has drawn.

As Daily Herald Political Writer Kerry Lester and State Government Writer Mike Riopell report in today’s editions, the Democrat-controlled Senate created a district that would force DuPage Republican Sen. Ron Sandack to run against Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont. Or one of them would have to move to a new district.

One could argue this whole process is what invites cynicism and/or apathy among voters. Why should the state Democrats, just because they’re in power now, get to draw the boundaries that could help ensure they retain their majority? Similarly, even if every other pen stroke of DuPage’s redistricting committee was done with the purest and most noble efforts to be fair, who’s going to buy it after hearing of the Fitzpatrick Finger? And why should the people whose political fate is on the line be the only ones who are drawing the lines?

In California, of all places, the process has been overhauled and multi-partisan groups and Joe Citizens are part of the process.

And to the best of my knowledge, no one there has been given a finger or a fist.

jdavis@dailyherald.com