Politics beyond 2024

For many people, the political advent of 2024 centers around an election for president that is certain to be momentous to the course of the nation. But other issues linger in Illinois that also offer the potential for great consequence and need to remain on the minds of voters and lawmakers in the coming year.

In a series of related editorials this week, we will look at some of those.

Let’s begin today with redistricting reform. For nearly a decade, activists inside and outside of the legislature worked to reshape the process by which Democrats have been able to build an overwhelming dominance of governmental affairs in Illinois. Unfortunately, those efforts never made it to fruition before the decennial process was complete that established new legislative and congressional districts throughout the state. Perhaps predictably but certainly harmfully, efforts to change Illinois’ constitution in ways that make it more difficult for a single party to shape voting districts to its advantage now have stalled.

We cannot let them remain so. If we learned anything during the 2010s, it was that achieving this reform is a laborious, time-consuming process. It is troubling, at best, to realize that we are now nearly a third of the way into the ’20s with no effort under way to address this issue before the next major realignment of districts in 2030.

It is particularly galling to see Democrats on the national stage decrying - rightly, by the way - the way states with Republican majorities are using gerrymandering techniques to build and strengthen their control of the machinery of government, while Democrats here in Illinois actively resist the very measures their party advocates elsewhere.

What little response Democratic leaders have offered to this complaint is an objection to “unilateral” change that would remove from them a political tool that would still be available to opponents in other states.

This is not an altogether irresponsible protest. It’s easy to understand how members of one party could take action that appears to weaken their position as they watch their adversaries continually strengthen theirs. But there are at least two reasonable responses to this concern.

One is the importance of aggressively pursuing efforts to change things at the national level and within other states. Options are available, some even under way, and these must be actively supported.

Another is the value of demonstrating an uncompromising commitment to democratic values that sends a clear message about the lack of commitment to those values in states that persist in their efforts to disenfranchise some voters by cynically manipulating rules to provide advantages for others.

Obviously, there is little that can be done now to diminsh the impact of this conflict in the 2024 election, but if we are ever to achieve a more pure and equitable democracy, we have no time to lose and we ought to be willing to take the lead in the effort.