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| IL Focus Turns to District Map |
(IRN)-As census numbers come in, the creation of new political districts in Illinois is ready to begin. The state Constitution calls for an initial deadline of June 30, but could go to an eight member commission with the final deadline for a new map in October.
With a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, and a Democrat governor, House Minority Leader Tom Cross hopes his team gets a say in how the map looks.
Explaining the procedure for reporters in Springfield was House Republican lawyer Andrew Freiheit. "You have the first time where all three, the House, Senate and governor's office, are all controlling the process," Freiheit said. "So we are anticipating that there will be some agreement. We hope to be part of that discussion as far as a map and that this map just has to be part of a majority vote."
Ed Marshall will draw a proposed map for House Republicans. He uses Autobound, a popular map-drawing program, to plug in census numbers (which may not come until April) to meet the Constitutional requirement of "compact and contiguous" districts.
Marshall says there are a lot of factors that go into whether his map will be considered in the final version of the re-drawing. "Is there going to be a map on the floor? Are they going to vote on a map? Are we going to go to a commission?" Marshall asked.
"Who sees the map and when it comes out is probably a function of what happens on the floor," Marshall said. "I know that in 1990 and 2000 no party showed a map on the floor and it did go to a commission. And then in the legislative hearings and commission hearings, groups will come out and show what they'd like. And then typically, in a perfect world, you'd throw all that together and come up with a map everybody likes. But we don't always live in a perfect world."
Marshall will start with federal anti-discrimination laws in mind. He'll find heavily concentrated areas of African Americans and Hispanics, plot those, and then work around those areas as he makes the district map "compact and contiguous."
"I think it's an accurate understanding that … the very people who are going to be affected by these lines are the people drawing these lines," Freiheit said. "So that has been a great emphasis to sort of encourage greater participation and transparency to take that self interest out of the mix."
(Source: Illinois Radio Network) |
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| 01 26 11 by Newsroom |
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