Opinion ID: 2142433
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: explanation of amendment

Text: This amendment would direct the General Assembly to redistrict the State for the purpose of electing one Senator from each of 58 senatorial districts and three Representatives from each of 59 representative districts. As concerns the Senate, area would be the `prime consideration' in the formation of the 58 districts. Downstate would be entitled to 34 districts and Cook County to 24 districts, 18 of them in Chicago and six in the county outside Chicago. As concerns the House of Representatives, the 59 districts would be based upon equal population as nearly as practical, except that in the redistricting prior to the 1960 census, downstate would be entitled to 29 districts and Cook County to 30 districts, 23 of them in Chicago and seven in the county outside Chicago. The three Representatives from each district would be elected by cumulative voting, as at present. Should the General Assembly fail to redistrict as directed, this duty would fall on a commission appointed by the Governor. The State central committees of the two major parties would each submit a list of 10 nominees to the Governor, who would appoint five from each list, making a 10-member commission. Should the commission fail to redistrict, Senators coming up at the next election and all Representatives would be elected from the State at large. If the resulting General Assembly still failed to redistrict, a new commission would be appointed, as before, and should this second commission fail to redistrict, legislators would again be elected at large  and so forth until a valid redistricting is secured.  House Journal 1953, pp. 2309-2310, Laws of 1953, p. 1928. The official argument in favor of the amendment contained the following paragraph: Illinois badly needs a legislative redistricting. The present districts stand as they were created half a century ago. As a result, serious inequalities of population have developed, not only as between Cook county and downstate, but even within these major areas of the State. The apportionment amendment tends to assure the people of a constitutional districting because if the General Assembly fails to act, a commission is provided; and if the commission fails to act, legislators will be elected at large. House Journal 1953, p. 2310, Laws of 1953, p. 1929. As stated in Wolfson v. Avery, 6 Ill.2d 78, 88, Since the language to be construed is a constitutional provision, the object of inquiry is the understanding of the voters who adopted the instrument. Many organizations urged the adoption of the amendment, and published explanations of its provisions, often in question and answer form. The publication of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, for example, said: Q. What happens if the legislators refuse to reapportion? A. The new Reapportionment Amendment has teeth in it to prevent a repetition of our present situation. Should the legislators fail to fulfill their duty to redistrict, the Governor will then appoint a special redistricting commission of 10 members representing the 2 major parties. Should the commission fail to act, then in a next election and in all succeeding elections until there is compliance, all members of the General Assembly would be required to run at large. This prospect of running at large is so politically uninviting to legislators as to guarantee observance of the new provision. One of the publications of the League of Women Voters of Illinois contained the following question and answer: Q. Can we be sure future legislators will obey the amendment? A. If the legislature fails to obey the amendment, then the Governor will act. He is required to appoint a commission of 10 persons (five from each of the 2 major political parties). If this commission fails within four months to draft a new map, then all legislators thereafter seeking office must run `at large' in state-wide elections. This is insurance against future legislatures failing to do their duty, thereby guaranteeing constitutional representative government. 34 Illinois Voter, No. 3, p. 4. In their brief the respondents say: At the time the 1954 Blue Ballot Amendment was being proposed, those who had drafted and were advocating its adoption contemporaneously published the intended meaning, import, and effect of the amendment. Those publications make it crystal clear that when the Senatorial districts were fixed in 1955 by the General Assembly, such districts were thereby intended to be established with finality, and could not thereafter be disturbed except by constitutional amendment. They then quote the views of Mr. Owen Rall and Mr. Samuel W. Witwer upon that question, which, as has been pointed out, is not before us. Mr. Rall's views upon the question that is before us in this case were stated as follows in the same article from which the respondents quote: The commission may then redistrict the state    failing which the commission stands discharged and all senators and representatives are to be nominated and elected from the state at large. The General Assembly thus elected at large has the duty to redistrict, and if it fails to do so, another commission is appointed.    In the meantime, while the legislature and the commission have failed to redistrict, the senators and representatives are to be nominated and elected at large  which is most unlikely ever to occur, but the threat of which gives assurance to any newly populous areas of the future that no legislative stalemate will deprive them of constitutional representation in the lower house. Rall, The 1954 Constitutional Amendments, 42 Ill. Bar Jour. 509, 511. And upon this question Mr. Witwer stated, again in a different part of the same article cited by respondents: If the commission fails to so act within four months, it is discharged; and, at the next election and all succeeding elections, until compliance shall have been had with the amendment, all legislators shall run at large in state-wide elections. It is believed that the mere possibility of having to run at large will effectively assure that redistricting will take place every ten years. Witwer and Choka, The Proposed Reapportionment Amendment, 35 Chicago Bar Record, 323, 325. Whatever may be the case as to the Senate, the constitution clearly directs decennial redistricting of the House of Representatives. The concurrence of both the Senate and the House is essential to any redistricting. The need for stimulus or sanction to induce compliance with the command of the constitution is no less for the Senate than for the House. The constitution provides the same stimulus  election from the State at large  for both Senate and House, the only difference being that the sanction applies only to one half of the members of the Senate because only one half of that body stands for election every two years. So the constitution provides that all senators scheduled for election at the next election, and all state representatives shall be nominated and elected at the next election from the State at large. The contention of the respondents, that once the Senate has been redistricted its members can never be required to run at large, might make sense if the duties of the Senate, with respect to legislative redistricting, ended with the initial Senate redistricting. But that is not the case. Decennial redistricting, certainly required as to the House, is to be by legislative enactment which means that any redistricting bill must be passed by both the Senate and the House. The Senate is not solely responsible for Senate redistricting, nor is the House solely responsible for House redistricting. Unless the Senate, as well as the House, is subjected to the sanction or stimulus of an election at large upon failure to redistrict, the purpose of the General Assembly that submitted the amendment, and of the people who adopted it, is frustrated. For the Senate, simply by inaction, could forever forestall legislative redistricting and force the appointment of a commission with the consequent threat of an election at large for all House members. That was not the purpose of the amendment and that is not what it says. Thereupon, all senators, scheduled for election at the next election for state senators, and all state representatives shall be nominated and elected at the next election from the state at large. The respondents contend that the italicized clause must be read out of the constitution, because otherwise one half of the resulting Senate would be composed of Senators elected from districts, and the other half of Senators elected from the State at large. And some voters who had voted for Senators who were elected from districts in 1962, would have the right to vote again for Senators from the State at large in 1964. The respondents argue that this result is absurd, and that the constitution must be construed to avoid it. It is true that the amendment could have provided a more drastic sanction, and hence perhaps a more effective assurance of future periodic reapportionment, by requiring that all members of the Senate be elected at large, instead of half of them. One of the reapportionment amendment proposals put before the General Assembly in 1953 so provided. (H.J. 1953, p. 49, 50.) This proposal was not adopted, but the fact that the General Assembly chose the milder sanction does not mean that it intended no sanction at all. The amendment deliberately provided for a Senate of unusual composition in two instances, first during the transition from the old Senatorial districts to the new, and second, in the event of a failure to redistrict. During the transition, one half of the members of the Senate, those elected in 1954 from districts established in 1901, were to remain in office under the amendment until the expiration of their terms in 1958. The other half was to be made up of Senators elected from the new districts required to be established in 1955. That is what occurred, and in the process, of course, there were voters, who had voted for holdover Senators in 1954, who also voted for Senators from the newly established districts in 1956. Under the amendment Senators from even-numbered districts were to be elected in 1956, and Senators from odd-numbered districts in 1958. The respondents concede that if there had been a failure to obey the constitution's command to redistrict in 1955, one half of the Senate would have been composed of Senators elected in 1954 from districts fixed under the old constitutional provision and the other half of Senators elected at large under the amendment. Some voters would thus have had the opportunity to vote for a Senator within a district in 1954, and to vote for Senators at large in 1956. Actually, there was redistricting in 1955, so that this contingency did not then occur. But the General Assembly that submitted the amendment, and the people who adopted it, did not regard the possibility of a Senate of unusual composition as absurd. They deliberately provided for it, and we have already had one such Senate. They were able to contemplate the prospect that is now characterized as absurd with an equanimity induced by the failure of successive legislatures to perform their sworn duties under the constitution.