By Ashley Badgley 217-960-1331

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois legislators have designated their own legislative districts for the past three decades. Now, reform groups are trying to put a stop to this tradition and give district designation rights to a new group — the people.

Advocacy groups are pushing the Illinois Fair Map Amendment and its independent commission, and gathered Thursday with Republican state lawmakers at a press conference to drive home their efforts to get the proposal on the November ballot.

Legislative district boundaries now are drawn in a manner that favors the political party that controls the legislature at the time the map is drawn.

Todd Maisch, a lobbyist for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce said the history of redistricting usually falls in favor of the incumbent. Since the last legislative remapping 10 years ago, less than 3 percent of elections were won by the challenger, Maisch said.

“Under this map, when you look at the fact that tested incumbents have won 536 elections and 11 losses…,” he said. “That is really compelling data.”

Jan Czarnik, executive director of the Illinois League of Women Voters, said Illinois needs an independent, bi-partisan organization to draw district lines instead of the current system that favors incumbents.

Under the current state constitution, if the legislature fails to decide on a legislative district map, legislative leaders pick four Republicans and four Democrats to serve on a remapping committee. If that committee fails to reach consensus a ninth tie-breaking member is selected by lot.

The proposed reform would change this process only slightly. Legislative leaders would still pick eight members of the commission but the ninth member would be selected not by chance but by the commission members themselves, who are evenly divided among Republicans and Democrats.

Reformers believe that a ninth member acceptable to both political parties  would ensure that the map is drawn in a bipartisan manner.

The Illinois Constitution can be amended in two ways. Lawmakers must approve the amendment with a three-fifths vote, putting the proposal before voters in the general election. Or, citizens can put the issue on the ballot by collecting a required number of signatures – at least 8 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the preceding election.

Czarnik said her organization is leading the petition drive to collect at least 500,000 signatures before May 2.

She said the initiative is getting both Republican and Democratic support, but is urging citizens to sign up.

“If we were sure that the legislature would do this, we wouldn’t be out collecting the signatures that we are collecting,” Czarnik said. “We would like to see the legislature do this. Just in case they don’t do it, we’re going to continue to go out there and get signatures.”

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, said he has a different idea for redistricting legislation. He said he believes the plan that Czarnik and Republican state senate leaders are pushing does not take minority areas of the state into account.

He said changing the wording of the Illinois Voting Rights Act to prevent lawmakers from drawing boundaries is not enough. He said the legislation should protect areas of Illinois where a boundary change could smother minority influence.

“Instead of putting specific voting rights language into Illinois statute, we would protect communities of interest, we would say you have to be compliant with federal law,” Raoul said. “There would be a certain priority of principles that would have to be observed.”

University of Illinois Springfield political science professor Kent Redfield said he is not sure how effective the Illinois Fair Map Amendment would be.

He said getting people involved and informed on a complex issue such as redistricting will be difficult.

“It’s very hard to connect the dots to get people [and] build people’s awareness and then to convince them that somehow they should care when they are aware of it,” Redfield said.

Illinois is the only state that allows lawmakers to draw their own district lines, according to the Illinois Fair Map Amendment website.