Illinois’ push to draw up new district boundaries has one House candidate calling for a return to geographically defined districts.
“I think when our first Founding Fathers had this great idea called America, they basically wanted leaders to come from the communities that they basically grew up in,” Dr. Jay Kinzler, who is running in District 46 against incumbent Rep. Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park), told the DuPage Policy Journal.
He said that over time, the geographical boundaries gave way to demographic divisions based on income, religious beliefs and political party preference. When redistricting is done with the intention of favoring a particular political party, it is known as gerrymandering.
Dr. Jay Kinzler
Kinzler says such action strikes at the heart of democracy.
“It goes against the democratic principles and even affects the concept of open elections because what you are basically doing is you are using geographic lines and previous data of voters to engineer future winners and losers,” he said. “Basically, taking away what I think is the purity of the democratic process.”
The result in Illinois has been similar to that of a dictatorship or monarchy, Kinzler suggested.
“I think having that policy, for instance, gerrymandering or how they engineered it, has resulted in a guy like Mike Madigan to have complete control over pretty much all parts of the government, certainly the legislative part," he said.
Republicans have accused House Speaker Madigan (D-Chicago)of overstaying his welcome just to manipulate the redistricting planned for 2020.
Kinzler says gerrymandering also hurts the flow of ideas and even services for citizens.
“I think the proof is in the pudding," he said. "You can see the results of why that doesn’t work well because there is a lot of corruption, there is a lot of nepotism and wasting in our government, and that has resulted in billions of dollars in deficit spending and an unbalanced budget,” he said.
The issue is also personal for Kinzler, who said he sometimes struggles to define whom his constituents are, since several of the towns in his district are only partially inside the boundaries.
“What that has done is, when I go out to meet people, to try and get signatures, you have to sit down with a map, which is literally street by street," he said. "For example, some people may be in my district, but the across the street from that or kitty-corner in the other direction, they may not be.”
District 46 includes all or part of Glendale Heights, Carol Stream and Villa Park.
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