Redistricting Reality Ahead for Cocky G.O.P.

By News on the Net —— Bio and Archives November 9, 2010

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JAMES WARREN, Chicago News Cooperative Joe Walsh, the most implausible of apparent Republican victors last week, may soon head to Washington to represent Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District. But he, along with several other Republican winners, had best not spend much decorating their offices.

That’s because one of them is a political dead man walking. The executioner is a maniacally shrewd Democrat whose top aides will hover over computer screens and draw lines on a map of the state, overlaying color-coded, block-by-block schematics of where Democrats, Republicans, blacks, Hispanics and other groups live. Lost in the Election Day fray was one ramification of the Democrats’ keeping control of the legislature and pushing the fumbling Gov. Pat Quinn to a full term: They will control the once-a-decade shaping of districts for 59 State Senate seats, 118 State House seats and all the Congressional seats. More...