A most unlikely collection of political outcasts meets most afternoons in Lincoln Park, gathering around a computer and plotting changes.
The case that has brought them together is a discrimination suit filed seven years ago by Richard Barnett and Eddie Read, two veteran black political activists. The legalese bandied about by lawyers in the matter sounds complicated, but in fact the case is about simple mathematics: though the proportion of blacks in Chicago increased in the 80s, the number of majority black wards decreased. “The ward map adopted [by the City Council] in 1991 denied black voting strength,” says former judge Eugene Pincham, the lawyer for Barnett and Read. “When you have 1.1 million blacks and one million whites but only 18 black wards and 24 white wards, that’s a disparity that cannot be constitutionally countenanced.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
This has been a persistent complaint in Chicago politics, and discrimination lawsuits were filed after the last three City Council ward reapportionments (1971, 1981, and 1991). In each case, maps were drawn in back rooms by mayoral cronies so as to pack blacks into “supermajority” black wards while dispersing white voters across many different wards. Over the years mapmakers have employed all sorts of words to describe the process (“packing” or “fracturing” being most common), but the net effect is white overrepresentation in the City Council, with white incumbents finding ways to stay in office long after their old neighborhoods have racially changed. (For example, Burke’s 14th Ward has been shifted west and south in stages over the last 25 years, with Burke moving to a new residence each time; thus he’s avoided having to run before a majority black electorate.)
“I know we make for strange bedfellows, and we have different interests, and we might not agree on any other issue,” says Cleveland. “But I believe there’s a place for lofty ideals in Chicago politics, as down and dirty as it is. I find it morally offensive that people segregate based on race. I feel it’s political apartheid. When you draw maps based on race, you’re saying a person’s relation to government is based on race. It’s offensive to me to say, ‘Because you are white, only a white man can represent you.’ I want to see race-neutral mapmaking. I want boundaries drawn as continuous and compact as they can be, whatever the political consequences.”
This time the case is being heard by federal judge Elaine Bucklo. Earlier this spring she asked the plaintiffs to prepare a new map, which she would consider along with one from the City Council.
City Hall is starting to take Barnett and Crown seriously. “We get phone calls every week from City Hall aides,” says Crown. “It’s like Let’s Make a Deal. I think the mayor wants to settle this thing so it won’t be an issue in the [1999] mayoral election. First they said we’ll give you the 18th Ward [now represented by Thomas Murphy]. Then they said, ‘How about the 10th?’ [It’s represented by John Buchanan.] They want to offer us this and then they want to offer us that. The next thing you know it will be, ‘Give us two extra draft choices.’ It comes down to this–which white alderman will they throw over the side?”
