Let's talk about Illinois' congressional remap

While this is old news I'm very happy to share this video from Let's Talk Elections on YouTube. You may have seen him in a video from Mr. Beat where they "handicap" the 2020 presidential race where they predicted - correctly :( - that Joe Biden will be the next POTUS. 

[VIDEO] In this video Ethan talks about the congressional redistricting that dropped on Friday. Every 10 years the US gov't conducts a census and that census helps to determine the number of representatives in each state and Illinois lost one Congressional seat. Of course Illinois wasn't the only one to lose  congressional seats. Of all places California has lost a congressional seat, I mean really the most populous state in our union.

Either way if you want to know more about the situation in Illinois check out Capitol Fax. This is said to be a first draft map and the map is drawn to favor Democrats. Democrats already hold a majority of the congressional seats in this state. Now whether or not this may help Democrats retain their hold on the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms remains to be seen.

The draft map that I saw just strikes me as very gerrymandered. Of course gerrymandering is a way that a political party in general tries to maintain their advantage utilizing the mapmaking process. We're talking about congressional seats right now, this could be done for state legislative seats or even for Chicago city council wards. In processes like this that can become heavily political expect there to be challenges. Of course the map as you would see in the above video could stand once some tweaks are made.

Aside from political advantage, another reason for gerrymandering is to ensure that a particular political map will elect certain minorities. For example the 4th Congressional District in Illinois has historically been drawn in such a way to ensure the election of a Latino U.S. Representative. On the local level in addition to maintaining a balance between Black, white and Latino wards there are calls to create a ward to ensure the representation and election of an Asian to the Chicago City Council.

Either way perhaps I will share any further updates here about the Congressional redistricting here at the "Shedd School of Political Science".