WSIL-TV 3 ABC

Top Stories

Last updated 8:51 am CT February 09, 2010.

E-mail Story Print Story

Redistricting Process Divides Jonesboro

JONESBORO— Changing the way legislative districts are drawn has been likened to asking lawmakers to do surgery on themselves.

Reform advocates say the current process, which allows lawmakers to draw the maps, ignores basic geography to protect incumbents.

If corruption is to be curbed in Illinois, they say, that policy needs to change.

The Illinois Senate Redistricting Committee is considering just that. They were at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Tuesday to hear testimony from experts.

If they'd traveled about twenty-five miles south they could have seen firsthand how ridiculous the current process is.

Legislatively speaking, Jonesboro is a town divided.

Union County Clerk Bobby Toler explains because of the way legislative districts are drawn five different lawmakers represent one city.

“For a small county, it really doesn’t make any sense,” Toler said.

It’s confusing, too.

"Some of the voters actually know one representative better than another and they think they can vote for that representative but actually they can't," Toler said.

The people they did vote for drew that map. Reform advocates say the current system makes it easy for those lawmakers to stay in power and that needs to change.

"If incumbents get too comfortable, if they are in power so long that they don't think anyone can touch them. Then bad things can happen and they don't become responsive to the public," said David Yepsen.

He and his colleagues at SIU’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute testified before the Illinois Senate panel.

Many say reforming that process is key to changing the culture of corruption in Illinois.

The committee isn't entirely convinced the General Assembly is the problem.

“I don’t recall the legislature being sent to Oxford, Wisconsin," said Sen. Michael Bond, (D)-Grayslake, referring to the federal prison where former governor George Ryan is incarcerated.

With budget and tax issues looming it will be easy for lawmakers to push reform aside.

So Yepsen says if the people of Illinois want to remove the taint of lawmakers like Ryan and former governor Rod Blagojevich, they have to keep the pressure on Boland and his fellow committee members.

As an election year approaches, "I think voters should ask legislators what they want to do about legislative redistricting [and] how they propose to improve the process so that voters have real choices in honest districts," Yepsen said.

By Dana Jay
djay@wsiltv.com

<< Back to Previous Page