Guest Column: Redistricting by Legislatures

I'd like to welcome Anthony Scandora, a friend for over 40 years, as guest columnist today.  Tony is a native of the Chicago area and long-time resident there, an intelligent and talented gentleman and a fine writer and observer of the world.  Tony can be reached at scandora@alum.mit.edu.

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Redistricting, covered in this column last week, is a subject near and dear to me.  The late former mayor Ed Koch of New York once said the nation’s most corrupt state government is in Albany.  He apparently neglected to look west.

Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has been Speaker of the Illinois House for the past 30 years, except for one freak two year term when Republicans had a majority.  Representing a struggling, once solid working-class district on the Southwest Side, he is the capo di tutti capi, possibly the most unchallenged dictator in the nation.

How?  Primarily by controlling legislative district mapping.  It's simple; just rejigger the electoral boundaries so that two Republicans have to run against each other in the next election (unless one of them moves), and any non-servile Democrat has to run against one of his minions in the next election.  With boundaries optimized in his favor, he and legislators of fealty can control endorsements and campaign cash -- and have -- in enough districts to keep him with a veto-proof majority.

In addition to campaign cash, he and his gang have consistently pandered to large voting blocs that keep the votes coming, without any thought about where the money comes from.  Make huge pension commitments to teachers’ and other public employees’ unions?  Check.  Make appropriate payments to the pension funds?  You gotta be kidding.  Maybe years of insignificant (and no) payments might explain why those funds are more than $100 billion, yes, billion, underfunded, the worst in the nation.  
That’s not all.  Even without making necessary payments to pension funds, the state’s budget is so overspent that bills don’t get paid.  Some impoverished rural counties have no physicians because they can’t survive on state Medicaid late and non-payments.  I personally know a printer who went bankrupt upon failure to collect for work done for the state.

Allied Van Lines reported Illinois was #1 in the nation for outbound vs. inbound moves in 2014.  Climate is only a secondary reason, after the state’s financial fiasco, taxes and overall hostile business climate created by the legislature.  Cities can go bankrupt, but states cannot.  What happens to retirees with their pension funds being $100 billion underfunded?  How many more jobs will continue being lost from businesses fleeing the state?

Judges are elected here, and then every few years they face retention votes.  Vote "Yea" and they keep their jobs; "Nay"and they get replaced in the next election.  Madigan’s machine has retained a judge who was on well-paid administrative leave after physically assaulting someone she didn’t like in her courtroom.  She was finally kicked off the bench, but it took several years.

Twelve years ago Madigan installed his daughter, Lisa, as Attorney General of the state.  She has actually done a generally decent job during that time, but for the latest election the Chicago Tribune declined to endorse anyone for AG, because the Republican challenger was clearly incompetent and unqualified, and the incumbent, Miss Madigan, has most carefully avoided any notice of what Daddy and his cronies have been up to ever since she was in high school.

Congressional districts are mapped by the same cabal.  Can they remap two GOP representatives into the same district?  Check.  My favorite was when then-Alderman Luis Gutierrez wanted to run for Congress.  To ensure his election, they drew a district from his Latino area on the near-NW Side, then down an expressway where nobody lives to a highly Latino suburb, and then back to the near-SW Side for another largely Latino region.  More recently he moved to a better neighborhood, so the map was adjusted to include his new digs.

Chicago works the same.  By legislative mapping of wards to eliminate dissenting aldermen, pandering to the same blocs as the state, and pulling the same financial stunts, the city has created the same financial debacle for itself as the state has.  I love that the Chicago Public Schools have spent 14 months of tax revenue -- this fiscal year.  That leaves them a cool billion short for next year’s budget, with no clue where the money will come from.  

The Federal Government can print all they want, but states and cities can’t.  The city has done so much long-term borrowing for short-term operating expenses that one service recently lowered the city’s bonds to a rating barely above junk.  Unlike states, cities can go bankrupt.  Detroit was much worse off, but if Chicago continues doing what it’s been doing ...

Can anyone think of anything good that comes from allowing legislators to choose their voters?

Copyright 2015 by Anthony E. Scandora, Jr.