The sun sets on the Illinois State Capitol on Nov. 29, 2023, in Springfield. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
By M. TODD HENDERSON | Chicago Tribune
Everyone knows Illinois is a blue state. The governor’s offce, the state House, the state Senate, the Chicago mayor’s office, the state Supreme Court, Cook County government and so on are all in the hands of Democrats. Of the 19 people who represent Illinois in Washington, 16 are Democrats.
But a little less than half of Illinoisans have voted for Republicans, and their voices are being drowned out by self-serving politicians.
Given that there are more Democrats in Illinois, it makes sense that Democrats should win statewide races, like for U.S. Senate and governor. The U.S. House is supposed to be different. It exists to represent all citizens. Districts throughout the state permit more tailoring so every voice can be heard.
Illinois is failing in this regard. Illinois has 17 House seats: 14 are occupied by Democrats (82%), and three are filled by Republicans (18%). But across all elections for the U.S. House in Illinois in 2022, 56% of votes were cast for Democrats, and 44% were cast for Republicans. If seats were proportional to votes cast, Republicans would have seven seats out of 17, not three.
The Democrats’ 14 seats in the U.S. House imply votes from about 3.3 million Illinoisans in the 2022 House races, more than a million more than the 2.2 million that they actually got. The problem is gerrymandering. After the 2020 census, the Illinois legislature — run with a Democratic supermajority — redrew congressional maps in a way that favored the Democratic Party. Only in politics does one team set the rules of the game before it is played.
To see the impact of the recent redistricting, consider the following. In 2020, Democrats won 57% of votes for the House statewide, resulting in them winning 13 of 18 House seats. (The state later lost a House seat because of population loss, per the 2020 census.) In 2022, Republicans picked up 3 percentage points of the popular vote and lost two House seats. At the ballot box, the people of Illinois expressed a preference for more Republican representation in Washington; they got less.
Read more here.
Todd Henderson is the Michael J. Marks professor of law at the University of Chicago.