HispanicBusiness

During his three decades in Elmhurst, John Morrissey has been comfortable being represented in Washington by a generation of conservative congressmen.

Now the retired 61-year-old business manager is coming to the realization that after having been a constituent of the late conservative icon Henry Hyde and current House Republican Chief Deputy Majority Whip Peter Roskam, his next representative in Congress is likely to be Mike Quigley, a liberal Democrat from Chicago's North Side.

"It's probably not good for Elmhurst to be tied to the North Side of Chicago," said Morrissey, a member of Elmhurst's library board and a Republican precinct captain for the last 10 years. "It's not just a different set of interests, but it's also the way Chicago politics is run."

Welcome to the new world brought on by congressional redistricting, where millions of Illinois residents will soon find their congressman is no longer their congressman. The shifting is what happens when one political party -- in this case the Democrats -- assumed total control of drawing new district boundaries.

The idea, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo that surfaced during a Republican lawsuit challenging the new map, was to create as many Illinois Democratic districts as possible to help a national effort to take back the House.

It's led to some odd geography throughout the state. In addition to the Elmhurst/North Side example, Rockford has been split into two districts, Chicago's South Side is now lumped in with Kankakee, and Aurora and Joliet are joined.

New boundaries have to be redrawn after every federal census to reflect population changes. Illinois lost one of its current 19 House seats because the state's population failed to grow as fast as in other states.

Illinois has had 11 Republican congressmen and eight Democrats since the November 2010 election. The new map, designed by the dominant Democrats, could flip that advantage to as many as 12 Democrats and only six Republicans.

The approach contrasts with the one taken a decade ago, when the state's Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed among themselves on new boundaries that reduced the delegation by one seat. The map was mostly an incumbent preservation plan.

The way the new map was drawn tracks closer to the political dynamic of 20 years ago. Republicans won the right to draw the boundaries, and the lines forced several Democratic congressmen to battle each other in primaries. The GOP picked up seats.

This time around, five Republican congressmen opted to run in new districts that mostly lean Democrat. The result is only one head-to-head GOP primary: the northwest and north-central Illinois 16th District campaign between first-term Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Manteno, which is west of the Indiana line, and veteran Rep. Donald Manzullo of Leaf River, southwest of Rockford.

The favorable map lines created new opportunities for Democrats, who are waging several primary contests ahead of the March 20 election.

Those include Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.of Chicago against former Rep. Debbie Halvorson of Crete in the new expanded 2nd District, a multicandidate battle in the new north suburban 10th District to run against first-term Republican Rep. Robert Dold and the new northwest suburban 8th District matchup between Tammy Duckworth and Raja Krishnamoorthi for the right to take on first-term GOP Rep. Joe Walsh.