Asian-American groups are pleased with Illinois Senate approval of a constitutional amendment to change a redistricting process that has split the community\u2019s political power. But they haven\u2019t stopped their advocacy yet.<\/p>\n
Group representatives had testified Monday in Springfield\u00a0 before the State Senate Redistricting Committee, which\u00a0 passed the proposed measure Monday, and the full Senate approved the amendment Wednesday.<\/p>\n
CW Chan, chairman of the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community who testified before the committee, said he endorsed the measure, championed by State Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago), because it included language protecting the interests of minority communities.<\/p>\n
The amendment, if approved by state referendum, would \u201cprovide racial and language minorities who constitute less than a voting-age majority of a district with an opportunity to control or substantially influence the outcome of an election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chan said the expanding Chinese-American community that now includes 59 contiguous precincts on the city\u2019s Near South Side has been particularly hard hit by past redistricting.\u00a0 While community organizing efforts increased the number of registered voters from 2,000 to 6,000 in the past 10 years, Chan said, the political power of these voters has been diluted by redistricting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re scattered all over the place,\u201d Chan said, \u201cWe would like all of these voters to be included in the same district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rebecca Shi, a community organizer with the Chinese American Service League, said the Chinese-American community in the Chinatown, Bridgeport and McKinley Park neighborhoods is split between four city wards, four state representative districts, three state senate districts and three U.S. congressional districts.\u00a0 As a result, Shi said, elected officials can\u2019t be held accountable.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny problem that we face, we have to go to multiple legislators,\u201d Chan said. He cited an overcrowded public library, a shortage of recreational facilities and long waiting lists for subsidized housing as community concerns that had been neglected by elected officials.<\/p>\n
Ami Gandhi, legal director of the Asian American Institute, also testified about\u00a0 her concerns with the current redistricting process and its impact on Chicago\u2019s Asian-American community.\u00a0 The process, Gandhi said, \u201clends itself to politicians picking their voters rather than voters picking their representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the institute is still evaluating the ramifications of the Senate measure, Gandhi said, \u201cIt is definitely a step in the right direction for minority voting rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gandhi said the institute is advocating for redistricting reforms that would include greater protection for minority communities that make up less than 50 percent of an area to elect the candidate of their choice.\u00a0 The institute would also like to see more\u00a0 hearings about proposed maps to allow more community input on the redistricting process, Gandhi said.\u00a0 Removing a requirement that two state house districts be nested in a senate district would give map drawers greater flexibility to reflect the needs of communities, she said.<\/p>\n
Gandhi said the institute was working with non-Asian-American communities to ensure that redistricting changes that would benefit Asian-Americans\u00a0 would not harm other communities.\u00a0 Still, she said, Asian-American communities may have different needs than other groups who share political districts, citing the need for multilingual and culturally relevant social services as an example.<\/p>\n
Chan said a meeting with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was planned for Saturday to encourage House passage. Chan said his goal was to help the legislature know about his community\u2019s situation: \u201cRecognizing the problem is the first step to rectifying it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read the text of the state redistricting amendment<\/a><\/p>\n Originally published April 15, 2010 as “Asian-American groups weigh in on state redistricting process<\/a>” at Medill Reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Asian-American groups are pleased with Illinois Senate approval of a constitutional amendment to change a redistricting process that has split the community\u2019s political power. But they haven\u2019t stopped their advocacy yet. Group representatives had testified Monday in Springfield\u00a0 before the State Senate Redistricting Committee, which\u00a0 passed the proposed measure Monday, and the full Senate approved… Continue reading Asian-American groups weigh in on state redistricting process<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[735,800],"tags":[32,802,825,395,22,826],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chicago","category-reporting","tag-asian","tag-census","tag-chinatown","tag-chinese","tag-politics","tag-redistricting","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wnIz-vd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}