Kane County Reporter

Tracy Smodilla, the Republican candidate for the 22nd District State Senate seat who is building her campaign around reform, criticized two recent actions that impede systemic change: the Assembly's "stopgap" budget and a judge's ruling against a redistricting referendum.

In June, Gov. Bruce Rauner struck a deal with lawmakers to provide some financial relief to the state amid the Illinois budget impasse, which has been festering for over a year. The temporary agreement funds K-12 education, road construction and selected social-services programs until the end of the year.

Tracy Smodilla | Contributed photo

“To many voters, it is another signal that the General Assembly has not yet felt enough pain in their own districts to actually come to the table and start working for change, or they are more interested in fighting for their re-elections rather than fighting for the people,” Smodilla told the Kane County Reporter.

Although the six-month budget ensures that schools will have money to operate when the 2016-2017 academic year begins, and construction projects won’t have to come to a screeching halt, that is insufficient, Smodilla said. If elected, she said she would propose reforms that prevent such impasses that leave the state without a budget.

Regarding another election issue, Smodilla said she disagrees with a Cook County judge’s decision to block the mapping referendum from appearing on the November ballot. The measure would have given voters the option of changing the process for redrawing state legislative district lines.

On July 20, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane Larsen ruled against the group Support Independent Maps, which circulated petitions for a referendum it called the Redistricting Initiative to appear on the November ballot.

The petition said, “The purpose of the 2016 Illinois Independent Redistricting Amendment is to change the current system of redistricting, where legislators draw the maps of General Assembly districts after each decennial census, and provide for a restructured, independent redistricting commission to draw the maps.”

However, a political committee known as the People’s Map opposed the referendum.

In challenging the proposed referendum, the People’s Map filed a lawsuit alleging that the redistricting Initiative is unconstitutional on several grounds, including that it takes power away from the attorney general and imposes new duties on the Illinois Supreme Court. The People’s Map asked the court to block the Board of Elections from putting the referendum on the ballot.

“The current map system has been drawn for the political advantage of House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Dist. 22) and his Democratic machine. It has been like this since 1982 and has left voters with no real choice,” Smodilla said in an interview.

Smodilla said 40 percent of General Assembly races in Illinois are unopposed, which helps keep Democrats in the majority and allows Madigan to maintain control and power over the State of Illinois.

“The effort to get the fair-maps referendum tossed off the ballot was led by none other than Michael Kasper, a long-standing legal ally of Madigan," Smodilla said.