Column in Washington Post on Illinois Remap

Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen writes about the Democrats legislation map today.

Illinois Democrats on Monday released their proposed new legislative district maps.

They are a textbook-perfect example of why partisan gerrymandering is a cancer eating away at our democracy.

Every gerrymander employs the same two tactics:

(1) dividing opposing party voters into digestible districts, and

(2) packing them together to create supermajority enclaves so that they waste votes on a seat they would never lose.

The new Illinois maps use these techniques so masterfully that they would make any practitioner of the dark redistricting arts proud…

State Rep. map in McHenry County.

This slicing is so obscene that election guru Sean Trende dubbed it “the baconmander.”

That’s not a tasty dish for disenfranchised GOP voters.

The new map is so brazen that progressive elections analyst Drew Savicki found it would create up to 85 districts expected to be Democratic in the 118-seat state House, even though only 69 Democrats would be elected in a map that fairly reflected the proportional strength of each party.

So while Democrats would naturally win a majority because they dominate the state, the Democratic plan would net them nearly 80 percent of the seats from less than 60 percent of the votes.

From the comments under the column, it appears that Olsen is a Republican.


Comments

Column in Washington Post on Illinois Remap — 4 Comments

  1. It’s almost amusing to see Republicans complain about Democratic gerrymandering when it’s their own gerrymandering that gives them many more seats in Congress an in the red state legislatures than their proportion of votes can justify, and when it is the Republican SCOTUS members who determined the courts had no authority over that process. How about we all support nationwide nonpartisan redistricting?

  2. **So while Democrats would naturally win a majority because they dominate the state, the Democratic plan would net them nearly 80 percent of the seats from less than 60 percent of the votes.**

    HAHA! I’d love to see his work on that absurd assertion.

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