Illinois News

[Zaybay]

What I find odd is this prevalent idea that Madigan is the only one who can draw a strong gerrymander and this even weirder implication that, if he leaves, the entire rest of the party will just fold and draw a fair map or something.

Madigan has a lot of influence and strength, but he's not some god. Most of the redistricting decisions are made between the members of his caucus discussing who they want to take out, what areas they want to represent, what areas they don't want to have in their districts anymore, etc. Its not Madigan just handing out decrees from Mt. Olympus on who gets to go where, its a group discussion that leads to a group decision.

Hell, if anything, Madigan being a rather old-age party boss hurts the Dems more than it helps, since Madigan's goal when it comes to input is to get his cronies back in office, not to benefit Democrats as a whole. The entire reason Newman may be trashed in the next map is not cause its a politically smart move for the map, but instead because Madigan's goon Lipinski was taken out by her.

In all honesty, Madigan has pretty much out-lived any sort of usefulness he had for the caucus and should just go. We can draw a perfectly good map, and perhaps an even better one, without him.

[Zaybay]

What I find odd is the idea that Madigan is the only one who can draw a strong gerrymander and this weird implication that, if he leaves, the entire rest of the party will just fold and draw a fair map or something.

Madigan has a lot of influence and strength, but he's not some god. Most of the redistricting decisions are made between the members of his caucus discussing who they want to take out, what areas they want to represent, what areas they don't want to have in their districts anymore, etc. Its not Madigan just handing out decrees from Mt. Olympus on who gets to go where, its a group discussion that leads to a group decision.

No of course the rest of the party will still draw a big gerrymander but if you don't think some of these progressive or even moderate suburbanite legislators are against gerrymandering ( see virginia amendment 1) that's foolish.

Not only does Virginia have nothing to do with this (slim D majority sees a couple of defections to united GOP proposition vs large D majority with a history of listening from on-high), but in the end their opinion either doesn't matter or is easily swayed by them just getting a safer seat.

Madigan isn't needed anymore, plain and simple.