Mike Madigan's masterstroke, and its expected effect, ranks him with other storied pols. Ill. makes redistricting hall of fame

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan this week punched his ticket to the partisan hall of fame.

With a muscular and mostly invisible back-room display that forged a Democratic redistricting plan that likely will gain his party a handful of House seats and end the careers of several GOP incumbents, the longtime speaker entered the pantheon of state power brokers whose efforts rippled well beyond their state capital and helped reshape Congress, for better or for worse.


Madigan’s masterstroke, and its expected effect, ranks him with other storied pols whose mapmaking exploits have become the stuff of political legend. And it places Illinois in the company of the following states that also produced memorably partisan maps.

CALIFORNIA (1981)

With his brusque and often abusive style — including excesses with drinking, smoking and other personal habits — Rep. Philip Burton (D-Calif.) could be a fearsome foe. And he embraced his reputation as a redistricting virtuoso.

Gerrymandered districts were “my contribution to modern art,” he once said. He repeatedly reassured local Democrats who worried about the look of their new districts that they were “in your mother’s arms.”

Burton — who fell one vote short of being elected House majority leader in a titanic 1976 showdown that was won by Jim Wright (D-Texas) — took control of redistricting in 1981 at a moment when Democrats were on the ropes following Ronald Reagan’s presidential landslide. By the time he was finished with his map, he managed to increase Democrats’ control of the California delegation from 22-21 to 28-17 — and shape the state’s congressional presence in ways that survive nearly 30 years after his death.

“Phil was a very large figure. To succeed in redistricting, you have to sell state legislators. Unlike [Texas Republican] Tom DeLay, he didn’t do it through money. His ties were more personal,” said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), a close Burton ally whose district was created in the 1981 map.

Berman, who had lost a showdown for Assembly speaker to Willie Brown, recalled that Burton’s success was based on a coordinated Sacramento-Washington strategy. “Willie empowered Phil. It served all the Democrats’ interests.”

Operating with what now looks like a Stone Age-approach to redistricting, Burton placed maps, paper stacks of census-track reports and his own tabulations across his congressional office.

That wasn’t the only trick up his sleeve: In a classic biography, “A Rage for Justice,” author John Jacobs described how Burton loosened Republicans with bottles of vodka to share their party secrets.

TEXAS (1991)

Texas Democrats may have had their clocks cleaned a decade ago in redistricting, but there was a time when they were the ones delivering a beatdown.

Back in 1991, even as the state was slipping from their grasp, they managed to redraw the congressional map to entrench what was then their overwhelming control. They also found a way to add three new minority majority districts, resulting in a 21-9 seat delegation in their favor.

“For members of Congress, it’s very difficult to dictate terms to a state legislature. In 1991, we had a lot of negotiations,” said former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who spearheaded the redistricting.

In his 1991 dealings with state lawmakers, Frost acquiesced to their often parochial-minded demands for the new district lines, an approach that resulted in some severely gerrymandered districts.

“Partisan maps don’t require convoluted lines, though they sometimes result,” he added.

PENNSYLVANIA (2001)



In a reminder that greed is not always good, Pennsylvania Republicans ultimately paid the price for over-reaching on their 2001 redistricting scheme.

With control in Harrisburg, GOP lawmakers drew an aggressive map that was designed to eliminate four incumbent Democrats and add two Republicans in a year when the state lost two seats because of reapportionment.

Things went downhill after that. First, Democratic Rep. Tim Holden unexpectedly ousted Republican Rep. George Gekas in a 2002 incumbent match-up. Then statewide dynamics steadily worsened for the GOP, and Democrats ended up holding 12 of Pennsylvania’s 19 House districts after the 2008 election.

The GOP managed to turn things around with a five-seat gain in last November’s election. And now that they again control the levers of redistricting, Republicans contend that they won’t make the same mistake.

“They will learn from being too aggressive in the past,” said Chris Jankowski, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which closely follows redistricting.

FLORIDA (2001)



The last round of redistricting delivered numerous goodies to Florida Republicans. The state’s two new House seats were claimed by then-state House Speaker Tom Feeney and state House Congressional Districting Committee Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans.Two senior Republican incumbents were bolstered; several Democratic incumbents were weakened — one of them lost in the next election. With a net of two other House GOP pick-ups since that redistricting, Republicans now have 19-6 control of the delegation in a state renowned for its partisan balance.

Democrats frustrated by the GOP’s artful map-drawing responded last November by winning passage of a statewide referendum of their so-called Fair Districts constitutional amendments, designed to avoid the same kind of calamity this time around.

TEXAS (2003)



This was a redistricting for the ages.

After the legislature failed to agree on a plan in 2001, a federal court drew one up in its place — a plan that resulted in a 17-15 seat Democratic advantage in a state that had long since moved to red-state status.

So after the GOP won large state legislative majorities in 2002, then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) pushed for what amounted to a re-redistricting to draw a different map, one that more closely reflected the state’s heavy Republican tilt.

A Republican plan was then rammed through, despite the dramatic mass exodus of Democratic legislators who fled the state to avoid the quorum needed to pass the measure. By January 2005, Republicans had a 21-11 seat advantage — all told, a six-seat GOP gain.

Like Burton, DeLay had cemented his party’s dominance at home in what became a career capstone. In the end, though, things didn’t turn out so well for the Texan — he was ultimately convicted of illegally funneling corporate money into state legislative races.