© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Illinois Issues
Archive2001-Present: Scroll Down or Use Search1975-2001: Click Here

End and Means: Nearly 80 Legislative Candidates Have No Competition

Charles N. Wheeler III
WUIS/Illinois Issues
Might they be amenable to casting politically difficult votes on contentious issues such as budget cuts or Medicaid and pension reforms if legislative leaders and Gov. Pat Quinn can hammer out compromises?

Conventional wisdom would suggest that the first election following legislative redistricting would offer voters a wide array of choices, as veteran lawmakers retire and droves of ambitious wannabes scramble to capture voters’ allegiance in newly minted districts.

But conventional wisdom would be wrong, at least for the 2012 election season.

In fact, when Illinoisans head to the polls in a few weeks, only a handful will find competition for party nominations, and in most districts across the state, the primary winner will be a lock to join the 98th General Assembly next January.

One does not need a crystal ball to predict the partisan outcome for most districts, only a quick glance at candidate filings.

Despite the presumed upheaval of a new map, only 24 of the state’s 59 Senate districts have candidates running from both major parties. The lack of competition is even more pronounced in the House — a whopping 81 of 118 districts, almost 70 percent, have only one party’s candidates.

In 21 Senate districts, mostly in Chicago, no Republican filed; similarly, no Democrats filed in 14 Senate districts, generally in the collar counties and central Illinois. Republicans have no one contesting the seat in 45 House districts, again largely in the city and nearby western and southern suburbs, while Democrats took a pass on 36 House districts in the collar counties and downstate.

And a fortunate 79 candidates only have to show up at the polls, vote for themselves, and they’re home free — they have no primary or general election opposition. Their numbers include 15 Democrats and nine Republicans in the Senate and 28 Democrats and 27 Republicans in the House.

(For an overview of the competitive races, please see article in the February edition by Mike Riopell on page 19.) The trend toward one-party races is nothing new in Illinois, of course, even in a first election after redistricting. In fact, the 2012 numbers are an improvement for the Senate, which a decade ago had 42 uncontested seats heading into the 2002 primary. House competition, though, dropped dramatically from 65 no-contests 10 years ago.

Of course, would-be candidates can mount write-in campaigns for a November slot if their party has no one on the primary ballot in their district. Party leaders also are allowed to fill vacant nominations, setting up nominal contests for the general election. But history suggests that primary winners have little to fear from such latecomers. For the 2002 election, nine Democrats and six Republicans were added to Senate ballots, but only one garnered more than 40 percent of the vote. None of the 23 House latecomers could do that well. In fact, in the five elections from 2002-2010, legislative candidates making the November ballot via the write-in route or with party bosses’ blessings are a combined 0-for-120 — not a statistic to inspire confidence.

Why doesn’t redistricting trigger a competitive surge, as political pundits would expect? The answer likely stems from the way districts are drawn in Illinois, a process in which partisan mapmakers use advanced computer technology to mesh census data with past voting behavior. The result: a map in which districts have virtually identical population — the most populous in the new map has one more resident than the least populous, based on the 2010 census — and clear partisan leanings, with most fashioned to favor the party drawing the lines. So the Democratic-drawn 2011 map has 14 Senate and 36 House districts that are so overwhelmingly Republican that no Democrat bothered to file. But more important to party leaders, its Democratic flavor discouraged Republicans from even bothering in 21 Senate and 45 House districts.

Of the districts in which both parties are competing — 24 in the Senate, 38 in the House — most contain large chunks of territory already represented by well-established Democratic incumbents. Several also include sizable populations of African-Americans or Hispanics, folks who are generally reliable Democratic voters, all intended to assure Democratic hegemony in 2012 and for the next decade.

This year’s lack of competition also could belie another long-standing political belief: Don’t expect much from a legislature before an election in which all 177 seats are being contested because lawmakers will be so fixated on winning new terms that they won’t want to make any waves.

But what if majorities in both chambers don’t have to worry about winning in November, either because they won’t have any real opposition, or they’re not running? That definition encompasses 35 senators and 81 representatives, well above the 30 Senate and 60 House votes needed to approve legislation.

Might they be amenable to casting politically difficult votes on contentious issues such as budget cuts or Medicaid and pension reforms if legislative leaders and Gov. Pat Quinn can hammer out compromises? Over the years, legislators in safe districts or headed to retirement generally were on board with leadership whenever a tough vote was needed, most notably on tax issues. As a result of bipartisan roll calls that were structured so carefully, legislators voting for past income tax increases have fared better in subsequent elections than their colleagues who voted no.

That record also will be challenged in the 2012 elections. In pushing through an increase in income tax rates at the close of the last legislative session, Democratic leaders relied heavily on lame ducks and members heading into their final term but also needed the votes of folks who were intent on coming back. Seven of 30 senators and 22 of 60 representatives were on their way out when they provided the bare minimum needed for passage, but the others weren’t.

What of the Democrats who voted yes and are on the March ballot? Perhaps surprisingly, most don’t face Republican opposition, despite the GOP’s best efforts to use the tax vote to its advantage. Fifteen of 24 Democratic senators and 27 of 38 Democratic House members have no Republican filed in their districts, likely a testimony to the cartographic skills of party mapmakers. How well the other “yes” voters fare against their Republican opponents could determine whether Democrats keep the legislative majorities the map was intended to guarantee.

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Illinois Issues, February 2012

 

The former director of the Public Affairs Reporting (PAR) graduate program is Professor Charles N. Wheeler III, a veteran newsman who came to the University of Illinois at Springfield following a 24-year career at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Related Stories