How can the Democrats beat Aaron Schock?
By gerrymandering of course:
By straightening out the lines of Hare’s district, and with some clever trading of territory with Johnson, it opens the possibility to end Schock’s career before the Republicans groom him to take a leadership role. Combines Peoria with Bloomington-Normal, Urbana-Champlain, and Decatur. Furthermore, it does it in a way that doesn’t lead to serpentine appendages going everywhere.
First: There’s no map of the districts, so I can’t judge whether either the 17th or 18th district are any less serpentine.
Second: The guy called misspelled “Champaign” twice in the same post. God knows I make spelling errors. But “Champlain?” Does he pronounce it with the “L?”
Third: A well-connected, behind-the-scenes Democrat told me last year that the Democrats were going to try to eliminate Schock’s district. That might be well and good the THEM, but it would leave Peoria less well-represented, in my opinion. I think we suffer from having to share a representative with Jacksonville and part of Springfield. We’d be better off if the 18th included parts of the 17th, like Canton.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
You can access a printable map for any congressional district at
http://www.nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html
I love it when you criticize other people’s misspellings. It always makes me laugh! Has anyone mentioned to you that you typed the word “jackesses” in the title of a recent post?
Well, I usually have the class to not bring up others’ little errors. Some folks LOVE to point out others’ errors. Makes them feel special.
I meant it totally in fun.
Having been around the process the last time the maps were drawn, let me clarify a couple realities. The first motivation is incumbant protection. With the likely loss of a congressional seat, and intrastate population shifts to the chicago suburbs, the first goal will be to protect halvorson, foster and bean. Only after that will questions of which REP to disadvantage make a difference. And don’t forget that the johnson seat was drawn originally to benefit the ewing faction, not johnson, but he won anyway… Look for a packed GOP seat which creates a urbana decatur springfield dem competitive seat designed for state sen frerichs similar to durbins old seat, just a guess.
Billy, where is your sense of outrage over these self-serving, partisan Democrat shenanigans, or do you reserve that exclusively for partisan, self serving Republicans?
Its not a republican or democrat issue, its a problem with the system. Each party abuses it the same way when they are in power.
I agree, Bravo. But billy only seems to get agitated if it is Republican mis-deeds.
Diane: First, no Democrat has DONE anything yet in regardsto gerrymandering. It’s just a bunch of talk. And I call’s ‘em as a I sees ‘em. I am not a member of ANY party.Not GOP, Not the Dems. Not Libertarian or Constitution. None. Some of my best friends of GOPers. Some are Dems. AndI know a Constitution Party member or two, too.
Billy’s right that it’s hard to picture what the author of the post is talking about without a map. However, I think what he had in mind for the Peoria district is to take the Democratic sections of Peoria (and maybe Decatur) that are in Hare’s district and give them to Schock’s district.
The essential problem with Democratic gerrymandering plans is that it’s Chicago and the near-in suburbs that have a surplus of Ds and it is tough to exploit that downstate at all. Rahm floated a map last year that created a whole bunch of wedges emanating out of Chicago, so that all of us could have a Chicago Congressman.
Matt has it right: the delegation will redistrict mainly to preserve their own jobs and will put partisanship aside, not for reasons of comity but because they would rather be in a safe district and have a 11-7 split than have a competitive district but two more Democrats.
I meant Springfield, not Peoria, in the 3rd line.
I have to disagree with Billy on his point that losing Schock would leave Peoria less well represented. Schock doesn’t represent me or anything I believe in.
But I don’t think the Democrats can defeat Schock. He’s too tireless a self-promoter. Fortunately, he’ll beat himself. We just have to wait for it.
I didn’t say that losing Schock would leave Peoria less well-represented. I says gerrymandering the Hell of the district in an attempt to force Schock out would leave Peoria less well-represented, no matter who wins, by diluting Peorians’ electorial strength.
Any moving of boundaries to allow more Dems in a Rpublican district just makes the original district less Democrat leaning unles everyone in the district is a Democrat like in some Chicago districts.