Chicago Tribune Editorial,
Mar 8, 2005

The map to cynical politics

When Rahm Emanuel got elected to Congress, everyone knew what they were getting--an energetic, ambitious politician with a Clinton-style instinct for centrist solutions. It was no surprise that with his political aptitude, Emanuel would end up as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, whose mission is to elect a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives.

It is a surprise, though, to find that his mentor is Republican House leader Tom DeLay.

DeLay, the guy known as The Hammer, is behind a cynical political trend--redrawing congressional district lines not every 10 years, to reflect new census data, but whenever the party in power in a state can gain something by it. In 2003, he pushed the Texas legislature to throw out the existing map and draft a new one to deliver more House seats to the GOP. It worked. Republicans gained 10 more seats in November.

Republicans didn't stop there. They tried the same thing in Colorado, only to have the new map thrown out by the state Supreme Court. They are at work on a remap in Georgia, where the GOP has gained control of the legislature and the governor's mansion since the last one.

Emanuel thinks this is a terrible approach--and one the Democrats should use in Illinois.

Emanuel and fellow Rep. Jan Schakowsky propose that the Illinois General Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats, toss out the congressional map adopted in 2001 and replace it with one that will elect more Democrats to the U.S. House--as befits a blue state.

That would help the Democratic Party. It would help Emanuel and Schakowsky, who aspire to greater influence in their party.

It would not help the people of Illinois.

Emanuel and Schakowsky are not looking to draw a map that creates more competition for House seats. They want a map that is designed to elect more Democrats before any vote is cast. The point of partisan gerrymanders, after all, is to keep voters from determining the outcome of elections.

The Democrats seek to introduce DeLay-style politics into Illinois, all but guaranteeing more bitter, winner-take-all political maneuvering in the state. That's a bad idea.

Fortunately, it's not likely to go anywhere. The current map was a product of an agreement between U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Democratic U.S. Rep. William Lipinski. Barring a sudden change of heart by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who had a big hand in drawing it, it's not likely to be junked.

It was not a model of participatory politics; it was designed to protect incumbents of both parties. But it has this to recommend it: The House delegation from Illinois is hardly unrepresentative. Democratic House candidates got 53 percent of the vote last fall, and Democrats hold 10 of the 19 House seats--or almost 53 percent.

What this shows is the need to take the decisions about politicians' futures out of the hands of the politicians. Redistricting should be turned over to independent, nonpartisan bodies, to make elections more competitive. Iowa has set the best example of how this can be done.

That's what the General Assembly and the governor should be considering, to assure that elections are more than an empty symbol. Emanuel's proposal may be turnabout, but partisan gerrymandering is anything but fair play.

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