The Land of Lincoln is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy redistricting cycle. Through Governor Quinn’s come-from-behind narrow reeelection victory, we have the trifecta in this state. At the same time, the GOP elected five freshmen congressmen from Illinois, some in districts like the 17th, that have historically elected Democrats. Before these congressmen can get situated, they will be put through the ringer of a partisan reapportionment.
Here are my basic assumptions in drawing this map:
1) As one of the few states where Democrats can make a big difference, Illinois Democrats will squeeze out as much seats as possible. Realistically, Maryland will only net us one more seat (7-1 seems more realistic than 8-0) and in the other states we control like MA we actually will lose a seat. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is an old-school Democratic pol; he knows a thing or two about screwing the Republicans and he will. Unlike 10 years ago when Denny Hastert could deliver goodies to Chicago and thus needed to be placated, there is no reason to accommodate any Republicans, and there will be no accommodation.
2) A second Hispanic seat is almost inevitable, given the VRA and the explosive growth of the Latino population in Chicago. But see #3.
3) As Madigan’s boy, Lipinski will be given another seat that he can win. He will not be drawn out, which is more geographically logical, because he is Madigan’s boy. Don’t know about Madigan and Quigley, but a Democrat is not going to sacrifice a seat here. Instead, I drew Peter Roskam out of a seat; the 6th now joins the 4th as Chicago’s 2nd Hispanic seat.
4) Of the incumbent Democrats who got defeated in 2010, Debbie Halvorson will get the sweetest deal? Why? She’s a former majority leader (the #2 position in the caucus under Emil Jones) in the State Senate and thus in my view still has clout in Springfield. Phil Hare will get a better seat. And I drew a better seat for Foster to return to. That leaves out Melissa Bean. Oh well – not much of a Democrat is she?
5) Partisan numbers: when the time comes for these to be uploaded, could you please put in the Kerry 2004 numbers if you are also going to do Obama numbers? Obama got about what an average national Democrat would get below Springfield (home state advantage cancels out with the latent racism that I see every day living now in Southern Illinois among want-to-be southerners down here) but north of Springfield, particularly north of I-80, he got vote totals in Republican counties that no other national Democrat would have gotten. No Democratic presidential candidate wins 55% of the vote in DuPage… I can see 47-50% nowadays as that county is becoming more moderate, but Obama PVI gives Democrats false assurance about redistricting. Perhaps my map is one of those, I don’t know. I did try to retain as much as possible of each Democratic congress person’s base in Chicago so that they would still be more than okay.
So it is hard to say for sure that all my districts will elect what I think they will elect. But I think I’ve drawn a map that yields 14 reasonably safe Democratic seats (all the seats that string in and out of Chicago plus Jerry Costello’s 12th downstate and the newly configured 15th downstate cities seat), 1 swing seat (for Melissa Bean – the 8th), and 3 uber-Republican seats (the 16th, the 18th, and the 13th). Following Illinois custom, the Biggert seat (the current 13th) got axed and its number migrated downstate to become Shimkus’s new seat number.
Chicagoland
District 1 (blue) Rush-D
50% Black, 41% white
Even though Rush has got a past with the Black Panthers, he should be all-right here. One of the goals that any Democratic gerrymander of Illinois must achieve is the unpacking of enough Democratic voters from Chicago so that Debby Halvorson can win again (and I created a tailor-made new 11th district right below Jesse Jackson Jr.’s 2nd to make that happen. Goes now into southern DuPage County and includes the home of soon-to-be ex-congresswoman Judy Biggert.
District 2 (dark green) Jackson, Jr.-D
50% Black, 40% white
Same story here as with the newly configured First Congressional District. Removes Hispanic and white areas of South Chicago and its suburbs, which now go in the 11th to help Halvorson make a comeback to Congress, and snakes into Will County a bit and then up like a U to parts of DuPage. If Jackson still nurses his statewide aspirations, this would be the perfect district for that.
District 3 (purple) Lipinski-D
White 65%, Hispanic 20%, Black 9%
Extends a bit further into suburban Cook County into areas once in the former 13th (so probably slightly lean Republican) but balances that off of black voters in south Chicago not needed by any of the 3 VRA protected districts. Lipinski should be fine in any case.
District 4 (red) Randy Hultgren (R) but not for much longer!!
61% Hispanic, 28% White, 7% Black
I believe Gutierrez lives in my new 6th district and that this district contains more Mexicans rather than Puerto Ricans (but can a Chicagoan please correct me on this if I am wrong). Don’t know whether this would pass VRA muster or not, but I see no reason why a Hispanic could not get elected from here even if his/her voters are not 61% Hispanic.
To accommodate Lipinski for all the reasons spelled out above, and to help crack Peter Roskam and Randy Hultgren, this district now snakes all the way to Hispanic-Aurora. Still no crazier than the current configurations of the 4th district.
District 5 (yellow) Quigley-D
69% White, 14% Hispanic
I believe the Du Page areas I added to this district, along with Elk Grove, are at worst 50-50. With both Quigley and Schakowsky I tried to maintain as much as possible their Chicago bases of support while rejiggering a bit the suburban parts.
District 6 (teal) Gutierrez-D
56% Hispanic, 33% White, 4% Black
Also snakes a bit now into DuPage County. I believe this is all-right with the VRA given that the district contains a lot of Puerto Ricans who are already citizens? Please, a Chicago resident, correct me if I am grossly in error here.
District 7 (grey) Davis-D
50% Black, 37% White
Finishes the job of cracking Peter Roskam with throwing his key base, Wheaton, in a black-majority district. Some of the 37% who are white, though, are white liberals out of Oak Park, so Davis will not face a problem here.
District 8 (purple) 50-50 rematch between Bean and Walsh, thinking that I’ve given Bean somewhat of a slight advantage here but am not sure
Grabs Waukegan and subtracts a bit in heavily-Republican McHenry. I think I’ve given Bean a ticket back to Congress – especially when one considers that we are dealing with Governor Quinn, and thus a Democratic trifecta with redistricting, because State Senator Jim Brady- Tea Party got about 50k fewer votes than did Mark Kirk in the collar counties. Joe Walsh is a one-term fluke; these Republicans are moderate and will probably cross over to vote for Obama and Bean in two years just as they did to reelect my governor when everyone said he was toast. Could have gone the extra mile and grabbed Elgin but I wanted to make sure that the 14th was amenable to voting for a Democrat as well, so I did not.
District 9 (light blue) Schakowsky-D
Extends a bit further north into Republican-leaning Wheeling Township, but I made sure to keep enough of Evanston and the Lake Front of Chicago – her bases of support. Look a Democratic gerrymander is going to have to unpack the black VRA seats and Schakowsky’s liberal bastion if it Schakowsky is going to be able to have a chance of voting for Speaker Pelosi again. And I think Schakowsky knows that and will play along.
District 10 (pink) possibly now a Democrat wins?
Added about 100,000 new Chicago coast residents that make it practically impossible for Dolt to win reelection here. One of the two really wonderful benefits of unpacking Democrats in Chicago a bit.
District 11 (light green) VACANT (tailor-designed for Halvorson-D)
Condenses to just Will County (minus 3 Republican townships in the 2nd) so Kinzinger is drawn out of the seat but… wait… this is Halvorson’s base. Adds a finger of about 150,000 Cook County residents to the seat and… voila… I think I’ve just created a district that voted for Obama probably in the 60% range now. I’d dare Kinzinger to try to win from here.
The rest of northern Illinois
District 14 (brown-green) VACANT
Built a district that connects slightly Republican-leaning Kane County (which it is, minus Aurora), slightly-Democratic DeKalb next door (because of NIU), and added what I imagine is heavily Democratic Rockford to the mix. Looks compact and probably is enough Democratic to elect Bill Foster should he wish to run again. This is the district that I want to test the most with Kerry 04 numbers, though.
District 16 (green) Kinzinger (R) vs. Manzullo (R) vs. Schilling (R)
Northern Illinois GOP vote sink. Did the petty thing and drew all three Republican congressmen from this region into the same district, leaving the 17th and the 14th next door both vacant.
District 17 (purple) VACANT (Phil Hare-D? or is there another Quad Cities Democrat who is more good at not losing his seat)
Quad Cities, Peoria (but not the part of Peoria that our glam-congressman lives in), snakes through mildly Democratic Bureau and LaSalle Counties to grab Kankakee. Still looks a bit fugly, but in some ways is an improvement over the current district’s configurations. Besides, no more ultra-Republican Quincy to muck up the works.
District 18 (yellow) Schock-R
Figure if you can’t get rid of this glamour-boy, straight out of central casting, and you really cannot, you might as well give him then a GOP vote sink so you can elect Democrat congressmen to the north and south. This district now contains no major cities at all.
Southern Illinois
District 15 (orange) Johnson-R probably a Democrat wins now or after Johnson retires
The other district that I would like to have tested with Kerry numbers. Connects Dansville, Urbana-Champaign, Normal-Bloomington, Decatur, and Springfield together in a reasonably-looking district. Adds historically Democratic Montgomery County to the mix. I think this district probably voted for Kerry, but I don’t know and Obama by a bit more. Kerry didn’t do well in Southern Illinois.
District 12 (light blue) Costello-D
Changes very little, goes north into Macoupin and surrounding Democratic-leaning counties to make up for population loss. This is my local congressman and about the only way to draw Southern Illinois nowadays to guarantee a Democrat in congress from that region.
District 13 (pink) Shimkus-R
Again, largely the same. Goes a bit northward into where the old 15th was to enable the reconfiguration of that district into a district that will probably elect a Democrat now. Shimkus is a scumbag, but realistically you need a Republican vote sink down here.
So, there you have it. Is this something reasonably safe enough for a Democratic gerrymander? Or did I just draw a dummymander? Let me know.
but extremely ugly. in a good way 🙂
I hope that I am correct in that assessment.
I particularly appreciate the way you managed to get that second Hispanic seat.
esp your 4th, very creative. I am a bit worried about your 10th though. I think the addition of Chicago only cancels out the removal of Waukegan and the district won’t get that much more Democratic.
But I’m with you on wanting the Kerry/Bush figures.
Surely there’s some other Democrat in the Quad Cities area who could run for the new seat.
It would be very effective and almost rivals the Delay gerrymander of Texas. I’m working on my own Illinois map and I also viewed parts of Northern Illinois to create a large GOP vote sink. I’m anxious to see how aggressive Illinois Democrats will get with the map, with the trifecta, I’m sure they are not going to waste a good opportunity.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi…
He should never expose his teeth when he smiles. <<
By far the best Illinois map I’ve seen.
It is very interesting – no more amazing. Its really stunning what technology can do.
Several points.
1. Hispanic population of 50% will not fly under VRA. The GOP map of 2003 in Texas was shot down on a 60% level. Many hispanics are younger-unregistered-not citizens or are new citizens not attuned to voting. You can draw two 50% districts and you did but the majority of the voters are not hispanics. In the one seat it could be barely 30%. You really need 60% at least.
2. I go back to my point on the three AA seats (CD1-2-7) in Chicago area. Drawing them right at 50% (with over 40% white) means that minority voters are possibly not even in the majority in these seats. In an open seat situation or even in a primary battle you will likely see a white candidate win these seats. From a purely political standpoint Davis Rush & Jackson (plus their allies) would not agree to maps like this. There is a question under VRA as dilution as well. If a majority minority seat is at 60% and you on purpose draw it down to 50%(which greatly increases the likelyhood of having the majority of the voters being white) one wonders if that qualifies as dilution? Mind you in Georgia if Bishop’s seat is draw from it goes from 52% to 50% is that dilution?
I don’t want to be a thrower of cold water but you can’t have VRA both ways. You can’t insist on 65% hispanic seats in Texas then draw 50% seats in IL? You can’t hollar about dilution in NC or SC among AA population then do it IL.
I really enjoy looking at these maps but yes there are practical political considerations involved. You can’t accomplish everything with every state.
Get rid of him Illinois!