•November 22, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

What do we do in Illinois when there is basically nothing we can do about policies most of us want changed?

Three such come immediately to mind: redistricting, term limits and our public pension albatross.

The Illinois Supreme Court has twice rejected recent efforts by citizens to put on the ballot a proposal to take redistricting away from lawmakers and give the job to an independent commission.

This, so that Democratic House speaker Mike Madigan can no longer gerrymander districts. A friend of mine toted up the votes in 2014 and found that 50.5 percent of the voters statewide voted Democratic in House elections, yet that party garnered 60 percent of the House seats. (By the way, Republicans majorities in many other states do the same thing.)     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.