Redistricting in Illinois.

The following represents my own personal opinion.

The media has covered the remapping process in Illinois, and the fact that, as part of that process, two Democratic Representatives were placed in the same District.

Those Representatives are Marie Newman, currently representing the IL 3rd District, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, currently representing the IL 4th District.

Because the IL 6th District was extensively changed, and because most of the proposed IL 6th District is currently the IL 3rd District, Newman decided to run in the IL 6th District against Sean Casten.

First, in the interest of transparency, I must say that I have volunteered on the Newman campaign, among others, and during the remapping process, I submitted witness slips and gave direct testimony to the Illinois House and Illinois Senate Committees that handled the redistricting process.

Second, I am a member of a coalition in the IL 3rd District. That coalition is comprised of actual voters, not paid lobbyists. And to be quite frank, we were disgusted with our former, long time Representative, and disgusted with his refusal to listen to, or meet with, his actual constituents, so we gathered and vowed to work for change.

To give testimony, and to submit witness slips is an unnecessarily complicated process. It is one designed to limit input from average voters, while giving the illusion of transparency. And Illinois Senate President Don Harmon said that both Committees solicited input from voters, and politicians.

And many of us gave our input, and many of those giving input were from the Illinois 3rd District. So much so that one Committee member noted that it seemed like all the criticism came from the Illinois 3rd District.

But in spite of all of the criticism, in spite of the fact that members of our coalition submitted maps to the Committees, the massively changed map was passed during a late-night Senate vote after that last day of testimony. Interestingly enough, during the public hearing, Senate President Don Harmon assured everyone that the final map would be what we had commented on, except, perhaps, for some very minor editing.

That final “very minor editing” process resulted in one border of the IL 4th District being slightly moved, with the result that Marie Newman’s residence was removed from the proposed IL 6th District, and placed in the IL 4th District.

Was this move political payback for Newman defeating the long-time incumbent of the IL 3rd District? Remember that the previous Representative was essentially gifted his seat by his father, who was an integral part of the Madigan political machine, and was himself the Representative in the IL 3rd District for many years.