Proposed amendment does nothing to curb gerrymandering in Illinois

If state House Democrats were serious about protecting our votes, they would require competitive elections and remove politicians from the process.

A proposed amendment to the state constitution shows that Illinois House Democrats have no intention of reducing partisan gerrymandering.

The House passed a redistricting measure April 22 on a party-line vote. It now goes to the state Senate.

If the proposal, House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28, gets at least 36 of the 59 votes in the Senate before the May 3 deadline, it will appear on the November ballot. If the amendment is approved by a majority of all voters or three-fifths of those voting on the question, the changes will be incorporated into the Illinois Constitution.

But the proposed language simply codifies the state’s current poor redistricting practice. If Democrats were serious about protecting our votes, they would remove the redistricting process from politicians altogether.

HJRCA 28 maintains the status quo

States must reapportion their legislative and congressional districts after the census every 10 years. When lawmakers are in charge of redrawing the map, a majority party will often take advantage of this process.

In Illinois, that means Democrats draw districts that insulate them from competition and maximize their partisan advantage. In the 2024 presidential election, 53% of Illinois voters in U.S. House races supported Democrats, yet Democrats won 82% of those seats.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave Illinois congressional maps failing grades in partisan fairness, competitiveness and geographic features, or how oddly the districts are shaped. Illinois has some of the most unfair maps in the country, according to the Partisan Advantage Tracker, a joint project of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.

Illinois also has some of the least competitive state legislative elections in the country: the state ranked among the worst in 2024, according to Ballotpedia.

HJRCA 28 would change nothing about the Illinois redistricting process. It would even weaken a provision that should safeguard against excessive gerrymandering.

Illinois requires that districts be compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population, and that those three factors be weighted equally in priority.

HJRCA 28 would add new priorities and rank them. These are the changes the measure would make to the Illinois Constitution:

1. The first priority is that districts must be substantially equal in population. This is already required by the U.S. Constitution.
2. The second priority is to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race. This is already required by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
3. The third priority is to require creation of racial coalition or influence districts “where practical.” The phrase “where practical” makes this more a suggestion than a requirement.
4. The fourth priority is for districts to be contiguous. It is unclear why this requirement ranks so low and whether it would allow for non-contiguous districts if doing so would create a racial coalition or influence district.
5. The last priority is for districts to be compact, if possible. To the state’s discredit, districts in Illinois have rarely been compact in practice, in defiance of the state constitution. This change amounts to codifying the state’s practice of skirting the requirement.

Illinois needs real redistricting reform

Absent from the amendment is any change that would address the state’s endemic partisan gerrymandering.

The answer is to take the shape of legislative districts out of politicians’ hands — the incentive to maximize partisan advantage is too great.

Sixteen states draw state legislative districts another way:

• Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, New York and Washington have completely taken the process out of politicians’ hands.
• Arkansas, Hawaii, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia require politicians to delegate the process.

Not only that, but Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, New York and Washington explicitly require their state legislative districts to be competitive, meaning the law requires maps to limit the partisan advantage within any individual district.

Electoral competition is associated with decreased corruption. As one of the most corrupt states in the country, Illinois desperately needs increased competition — not safer seats for incumbents.

Illinoisans deserve real redistricting reform to ensure their votes make a difference. That means taking redistricting out of the hands of politicians and requiring competitive districts. HJRCA 28 does neither.