Contemplating “People, Places, and Power” on Local Election Day

From 1870 to 1980, each state senatorial district had three state representatives, who were elected at large. In that system, called “proportional representation,” all three represented each resident of the entire district. Furthermore, each voter could cast as many as three votes for state representative candidates, potentially allotting A) one to each of three candidates, B) two to one candidate and one to another, or C) all three to a single candidate. This practice was known as “cumulative voting.”

According to various commentators, proportional representation and cumulative voting incentivized bipartisan cooperation and gave representatives from less populous regions more leverage than the present system, in which each state representative district is geographically delineated and served by just one legislator, does. Some contend that the older system was not only more beneficial to rural Illinoisans but also more democratic overall and less prone to polarization than the one currently in place. Public officials from both major parties, including then-state senator Barack Obama and former governor Jim Edgar, have proposed reverting to it, and several organizations, such as FairVote and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, advocate doing so.

Another change of electoral procedure that eliminated advantages previously possessed by rural voters occurred as a result of the apportionment controversy of the 1960s. Everett Dirksen, a Tazewell County native who represented Illinois in the United States Senate and served as the Senate minority (Republican) leader at the time, played a prominent role in that controversy.

“Being challenged all over the nation were the practices of maintaining traditional legislative district boundaries regardless of their populations or any other considerations for representation,” explains Tiffany White, executive director of the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin and an Illinois Humanities Road Scholar, in “Fulton County Edition.”

 Those challenges culminated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) stipulating that all state legislative districts be apportioned according to the standard of “one person, one vote.” In other words, district boundaries must be drawn so that districts are as nearly equal in population as possible, ensuring that each legislator in a particular chamber represents approximately the same number of residents.

“In part, the Supreme Court was responding to the overall movement of the nation’s population from the country to the city, a movement underway since the turn of the 20th century. By 1960, there was not a single legislative body in a single state in which there was not at least a two-to-one population disparity between the most and least heavily populated districts,” says White. “As a result, malapportionment had benefited rural areas in state legislative chambers. As people abandoned the farms and countryside, legislators apportioned there on the basis of geography represented fewer and fewer citizens. The result, of course, is that those who remained in those rural areas possessed an overweighted influence.”

In Reynolds v. Sims, the court sought to correct that imbalance. “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres,” wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren. “Diluting the weight of votes because of place of residence impairs basic constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment just as much as invidious discriminations based on race or economic status.”

Senator Dirksen vehemently disagreed. White notes, “As a matter of philosophy and principle, Dirksen favored what was known as the Federal Plan, which provides that one branch of a state’s legislature be based on population and the other on geography.” His primary objection to the ruling, however, was that it “expressly violated the rights of states to determine for themselves how best to constitute their legislatures” and was therefore, in his view, an instance of federal overreach. He commented, “What is really at issue here is not whether so-called equal-population districts are or are not better. Instead, the issue is simply whether the people can continue to make the choice.”

With support from many fellow elected officials, Dirksen led efforts to counteract the court’s decision, eventually taking the unusual and perhaps extreme step of encouraging state legislatures to request a constitutional convention. Several state legislatures did so, and a constitutional convention seemed within the realm of possibility. Dirksen died in 1969, however, and the movement lost its momentum.

As the Southeastern Illinois College Model Illinois Government team, Tiffany White, Molly Parker, and many other people featured in “People, Places, and Power” indicate, the electoral implications of the relationship between population distribution and the allocation of power and resources in Illinois are complex and, in some instances, indicative of persistent conundrums in representative democracy. The resources, methods, and spirit of deliberation offered by the humanities can help us to address such conundrums constructively, even if they can never be fully resolved.

Our upcoming Museum on Main Street exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Voices and Votes: Democracy in America, will provide further opportunities to ponder recurring issues and themes in the evolution of the electoral process and civic participation in the United States:

• “The Great Leap” – the origins of America’s democratic system
• “A Vote, A Voice” – the expansion of the right to vote and challenges related to it, past and present
• “The Machinery of Democracy” – the institutions and systems that facilitate participation in the electoral process
• “Beyond the Ballot” – civic participation, advocacy, and activism beyond the electoral process
• “Creating Citizens” – perspectives on the rights and responsibilities of citizens and their influence upon our complex national identity.

We invite you to view Voices and Votes at any of the following venues, where it will be accompanied by a companion exhibition connecting its subject matter with the host organization’s local history:

• July 17-August 21, 2021: Madison County Historical Society, Edwardsville
• August 28-October 2, 2021: Bryan-Bennett Library, Salem
• October 9-November 13, 2021: Savanna Museum and Cultural Center, Savanna
• November 20-December 25, 2021: Jacksonville Area Museum, Jacksonville
• January 1-February 5, 2022: Vespasian Warner Public Library District, Clinton
• February 12-March 16, 2022: General John A. Logan Museum, Murphysboro.