Gerrymander Democracy The Chicago Way

Notice in lib MSM the stories blaming GOP’s retake of House on “gerrymandering” yet WSJ reminds how “Democracy Dies in Illinois” as that Chicago Machine controlled state used “Gerry from Hell” to keep power.

The paper’s editorial board didn’t mince words about the Land of Lincoln’s peculiar use of the oft-criticized yet oft- copied gerrymandering technique by both parties: It’s “a case study in how progressives [in particular] entrench themselves in power,” that is, “by changing the rules to limit political competition and entrench one-party, public-union rule.” Just last year, “Democrats … jammed through new state legislative maps that forced 12 Republican incumbents into six House districts … their new, more extreme gerrymander helped them pick up to five more seats,” i.e., beyond the 73 of 118 House seats they held under the previously gerrymandered rules.

It gets worse. Illinois Democrats also redrew the state’s Supreme Court districts for the first time in 60 years “to give themselves the edge” in the latest election of Justices and thereby “retain their 4-3 High Court majority.” Of course, “the sound you don’t hear is the national press deploring any of this or even reporting it … [instead] … Democrats in Washington have tried in the last two years to entrench their power nationals as they have done in Illinois.” After all, as Tribune columnist John Kass once might have said, “it’s the Chicago Way.”

Davd Soul