Statewide, some 54% or 55% of the voters supported the Democratic Party's sweep of statewide offices (I believe Comptroller Susan Mendoza may have led the ticket with something like 57% of the vote). If legislative maps were proportinately drawn, Democrats should expect to receive 64 seats in the 118-member Illinois House and 32 or 33 seats in the Illinois Senate -- a comfortable majority, but not veto-proof. But, thanks to the superb cartographic skills of the Democratic Party's map-makers, Democrats will again enjoy supermajorities in both houses.
With proportionate maps, there might have been as many as seven or even eight Republicans sent to the U.S. House from Illinois. But with the maps we have, with what look like straws snaking into Cook County's seemingly inexhaustible fund of Democratic votes from all directions, there will be perhaps three Republicans in Illinois' 17-member delegation.
In Texas or North Carolina this would be denounced as gerrymandering. Here...? I guess here you'd best just call it good politics.
But the Democratic Party's mapmakers faced a real challenge this year.
When Tom Kilbride's Supreme Court retention bid failed in 2020, the possibility of a 4-3 Republican majority on the Illinois Supreme Court became more than theoretical. While Cook County has long been a Democratic bastion, and while the collar counties have been turning and trending Blue and Bluer for several election cycles, the rest of the State has turned more correspondingly Red. Republican victories in the then-existing Second and Third Judicial Districts seemed likely.
So the Illinois Democratic Party had to redraw the Supreme Court districts.
But the 1970 Illinois Constitution posed some significant obstacles for the map-makers: Cook County IS the First Judicial District, according to the Constitution. It cannot be broken up into chunks, even for the noble purpose of protecting a Democratic majority on the Illinois Supreme Court.
There was only one option: The collar counties had to be shuffled in a way to maximize the Democratic Party's chances. In 2018 Pritzker won the counties comprising both the new Second Judicial District (DeKalb, Kendall, Kane, Lake, and McHenry Counties) and the new Third Judicial District (Bureau, LaSalle, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, DuPage and Will Counties). Thus, the map-makers thought they had a shot at both new seats.
They may well have been right.
Lake County Judge Elizabeth Rochford defeated former Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran to win the new Second Judicial District seat.
And, judging by results posted online this morning by the respective county clerks, it appears that Appellate Court Justice Mary K. O'Brien is going to defeat appointed Supreme Court Justice Michael Burke, albeit by only about 8,000 votes:
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UPDATE: O'Brien has claimed victory.
To be fair, it's not likely that the Dem would have won in the 3rd without the Roe reversal and the extra turnout it caused among suburban women that's being reported nationally. And maybe not even in the 2nd either, if the Reps had chosen a candidate with actual judicial experience. But your point isn't wrong, the creative boundaries kept both districts in play.
ReplyDeleteJust what we needed — more Irish women on the Illinois Supreme Court. Whoopee!
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Anonymous, but these Irish women seem pretty good to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Irish women are needed to balance out the 3 African-Americans who will be on the court as of December 2022. But if you are really worried about diversity, perhaps we can talk about the lack of a Latinx representative.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm. The silence is deafening. It's time for Jesse and Sandy to suit up and take their respective spots on the Supreme and Appellate Court! And you get ready too, Judge Evie. If there are multiple vacancies in 2024, you and Judge Ortiz should run as a slate with Judge Ramos!
Let's show 'em what Latinas can do!
Si Se Puede!