For the past 30 years, Illinois legislators have designated their own legislative districts by drawing legislative boundaries on their own.

Currently, boundaries are often drawn in a way that favors the political party that controls the legislature at the time the map is drawn, according to an article in The Galesburg.

“Essentially we have a system where the legislators choose their voters.  In Democracies, it’s supposed to work the other way around,” Gary Klass, politics professor, said.

This system allows for many incumbents to win and gives their challengers very little chance.

In The Galesburg article, Todd Maisch, a lobbyist for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said the history of redistricting usually falls in favor of the incumbent. Since the last legislative remapping 10 years ago less than 3 percent of elections were won by the challenger.

The same article explained incumbents have won 536 elections with only 11 losses.

“Redistricting is one of the primary tools that the parties use to ensure that no third party has a feasible chance of capturing a state or federal legislative seat, and one of the major goals of redistricting for the major parties is to draw maps so that many of their incumbents end up in safe districts with no real opposition from a candidate of the opposing party,” Robert Bradley, politics professor, said.

The redistricting process occurs every 10 years along with the census and reform groups are pushing to give this power back to the people.

The League of Women Voters is heading up the process and backing The Fair Map Amendment.

They have partnered with many reform groups, including: the Better Government Association, members of the Illinois Reform Commission, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, Common Cause-Illinois, the Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, Illinois Alliance for Growth, Independent Voters of Illinois and United Power for Action and Justice.

The Fair Map Amendment is backed by Republican lawmakers, Klass explained.

“The Democratic proposal would essentially leave things the way they are with a minor change,” he added.

“Most importantly, the proposal would say that political parties will not be protected in the redistricting process.  This will lead to competitive elections, especially in the first redistricting after the census.  Then, many legislators will find themselves sharing districts with their colleagues.”

“This would be a dramatic change in Illinois, which currently has the most dysfunctional state legislature in the nation.”

According to The Pantagraph, state Sen. Kwame Raoul has also introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow citizens to submit their own suggestions about the redistricting process.

The Democratic plan would allow the House to make a map that divides up House districts, and the Senate to make a map dividing up their districts; the legislative body would then need to approve the maps with a three-fifths vote.

The Republican’s plan assigns a bipartisan commission to draw the map and the legislature would have to approve the map with a two-thirds vote, said The Pantagraph.

According to state law, in order for the Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment to appear on the ballot in November, the General Assembly must pass it with a three-fifths majority by May 2, 2010, explained in a press release on House Republican leader Tom Cross’s Web site.