Will Bost, Miller or Davis go to Congress for southwest Illinois? There’s room for two
Three members of Congress will still represent the metro-east under a map approved Friday, but the gerrymandered districts create competitive campaign territory and the potential for new leadership.
The 12th, 13th and 15th Congressional Districts still cover southwestern Illinois in the new map, which could still face challenges in court. There will be 17 districts after Illinois lost one due to decreasing population.
The 12th district, represented by incumbent Murphysboro Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, stretches from Cairo to Oakland, the tiny eastern Illinois town home to GOP U.S. Rep. Mary Miller. The Trump devotee represents what is now the 15th district.
In the new map, Miller’s family farm falls roughly a mile south of the 12th district’s northernmost border.
Instead of its current home in the 13th district, Belleville falls into the newly drawn 13th, which sprawls from East St. Louis and Alton to Champaign-Urbana. With no Republican incumbents, it’s considered a relatively safe district for a Democrat.
Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville was drawn into a scattered 15th district where there are no other incumbents. Except for a diagonal slice from East St. Louis to Champaign-Urbana, the 15th covers a swath of rural central Illinois from the Indiana border, to Godfrey and Quincy in the west, and nearly up to Mustacatine, Iowa.
At one bizarre part of the map near Decatur, a person could drive five miles north to south and cross district borders twice.
“The maps are an abuse of Democracy just like Republican maps being drawn in states where the GOP is in control,” said Jim Nowlan, a former Republican state legislator and political commentator.
“The citizen is being played as a pawn in the politicians’ game and that creates a lot of distress among those of us who would like to see our political system provide opportunities for voters, not just situations in which they are simply shunted here and there to achieve political goals of one party or the other,” Nowlan said.
Who’s running?
Bost, a four-term congressman who formerly served in the Illinois House of Representatives, announced his plans to run for reelection in the 12th Friday.
“With Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi running roughshod in Washington, D.C., Southern Illinoisans need a battle-tested conservative fighting for them now more than ever,” Bost said in a prepared statement.
A spokesman for Davis said he will “make a formal announcement on his 2022 plans” after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs the new maps into law.
Miller had not announced her intentions as of Friday afternoon.
In a contest between Bost and Miller, Bost could have the advantage in southern Illinois’ more populous cities as the better-liked a conservative incumbent, said Kenneth Moffett, a political science professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Miller drew ire in southern Illinois in early 2021 when she cited Adolf Hitler in a speech at the U.S. Capitol.
“Bost’s the longer term incumbent and that this district covers a substantial part of Bost’s territory,” Moffett said. “The issue in a Miller-Bost contest would undoubtedly be some of her remarks she made earlier this year.”
Miller’s campaign had $431,769 cash-on-hand and Bost had $647,182.
But Miller doesn’t have to run in the district where she lives, Moffett said. The Constitution states members of Congress must live in the state they represent, not necessarily the district. If she felt her odds were rosier against a relatively moderate Republican such as Davis, Miller could decide to run in the 15th.
A Politico reporter caught up with Miller this week and asked her if she’s considering running against a certain candidate.
“I have no idea,” she told Politico, “but I can say I laughed when I read that they think they’re terrorizing me. Because I am not scared.”
The new 13th district only has one candidate so far: Democrat Nikki Budzinski, a former aide to Pritzker. She originally intended to run against Davis, but he was drawn out of the district.
It’s too soon to tell who else might run, Moffett said.
Past congressional candidates from the metro-east included Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly, former SIU Carbondale professor Ray Lenzi and attorney C.J. Baricevic.
Democrats could win as many as 14 seats statewide, Capitol News Illinois reported, citing the nonpartisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project.
Problematic maps
If the new district lines stand, they will create an extreme political environment, Nowlan said.
The map concentrates people of the same political ideologies, making it harder for centrist candidates to win.
“A candidate for office within the respective primaries have to move to the right or to the left, and they care not at all about those of us in the middle,” Nowlan said.
It also divides communities, Moffett said.
“Some of the communities will be represented by both a Republican and a Democrat,” he said. “It creates some interesting dynamics at the local level and especially for local governments.”
The metro-east city of O’Fallon, for instance, is split down the middle between the new 12th and 13th districts.
