Jillian Rose Bernas (R-Schaumburg) recently joined her colleagues in protesting the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on placing the Independent Map Amendment on November's election ballot.
"Democracy only works when people have a choice at the ballot box, but career politicians rig the system by drawing partisan, gerrymandered districts taking away this choice,” Bernas said. “Currently, there are only 62 contested elections out of 158 total General Assembly seats up for election this November. This means a lot less than half of districts actually have a choice.”
In the wake of a tremendous, expensive grass-roots petition effort backed by dozens of businesses and civic groups, the state Supreme Court ruled to uphold a Cook County Circuit Court judge’s initial decision — in a long-awaited, decidedly partisan 4-3 decision.
“Today’s court decision is a loss for the vast majority of Illinoisans who know that we need to reform our political system,” Bernas said. “Even though the Independent Maps proposal received bipartisan support from individuals and community organizations across Illinois, the entrenched politicians prevailed.”
Majority Democratic justices sided with the lower court judge in their opposition to the Independent Map Amendment, stating that the reform group’s plan violated the Illinois Constitution.
The bipartisan Independent Map Amendment group had collected almost 600,000 Illinois voter signatures for its second consecutive attempt at letting voters decide whether they wanted an independent commission empowered to draw Illinois’ statehouse boundaries instead of political party leaders.
“As your state representative, I will fight to stop the corruption in Springfield by supporting fair maps and term limits," Bernas said.
Alerts Sign-up