By Kevin Lee

Illinos Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD  — With the federal government conducting the decennial census, Democratic state senators have introduced a plan that would rework how the state draws its legislative districts.

The state is due to redraw its legislative districts in 2011. The current redistricting process, which is dependent on census data and has occurred every ten years since 1971, has been rife with partisan and legal challenges.

In the four times Illinois has had to redistrict between 1971 and 2001, lawmakers have failed to finalize a legislative map.

The state has eventually gone to a last-ditch option, where the Secretary of State randomly selects a name out of a hat to finalize a commission and draw the map.

The Democratic proposal, sponsored by state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, would maintain that districts be of equal population, but would get rid of the random-draw tiebreaker.

The Constitutional proposal would “de-nest” the legislative districts, meaning Senate lawmakers and House lawmakers would be responsible for drawing their own districts.

Raoul said his districts would also be drawn to help protect the political interests of racial minorities.

“We want to maintain the diversity we have in the General Assembly. Our proposal…also protects the ability of minority districts to have influence districts and crossover districts and has explicit language protecting community of interests,” he said.

The Constitutional proposal would also require lawmakers to hold public meetings on the redistricting process.

Raoul’s Constitutional proposal will come before a Senate redistricting committee, of which Raoul is chairman, on Monday.

State Sen. Brad Burzynski, R-Sycamore, a member of that redistricting committee, said he would likely oppose the Raoul proposal.

Burzynski said the last-ditch measure for the Raoul proposal would be to leave redistricting responsibilities in lawmakers’ hands.

“I’ve been through this a couple of times and I’ve seen the Republicans draw the map and I’ve seen the Democrats draw the map,” he said. “From my experience, it’s incumbent protection.”

Burzynski and other  Republicans favor a proposal called the “Fair Map Amendment,” which would delegate an independent, non-partisan group to draw the district map.

Neither the House nor the Senate has debated the Fair Map Amendment.

With the state scheduled to redraw the maps next year, Burzynski anticipated that lawmakers would pass a redistricting Constitutional proposal by the end of this session.

But any Constitutional proposal on redistricting still has a long ways to go.

Both chambers would have to approve by an extraordinary three-fifths majority to put the proposal on a ballot for November’s general election. Voters would then decide on whether or not to adopt the proposal.