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New Congressman Expresses Redistricting Concerns
A soon to be local Congressman says he hopes the Illinois legislature does the right thing when it's time to redistrict, now that the census has resulted in Illinois losing a Congressional seat.

Republican Congressman-elect Bobby Schilling says he wants Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois General Assembly to resist what he calls backroom deals with drawing the new map, and to draw the map the way the people want it drawn.

However, Schilling tells WGIL if it were up to him, the state wouldn't be so gerrymandered.

"Rather than allowing the politicians to go in and pick the voters, we should allow the voters to pick the politicians. What would be nice is if you look at Iowa's map it's nice and squared up, there's no alleys or bike paths that you have to through. Just squared up and they cover as many of the counties as they can to get the whole thing in rather than what we've got going on in the 17th."

Schilling says even though he's the first Republican in 30 years to win the seat, he still calls the 17th District, as Democratic as you can get.

He says he'll still do his best to represent the entire 17th District, having defeated incumbent Phil Hare in November.
12 23 10 by Newsroom
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