Illinois Republicans led by the suburban leadership of the House and Senate challenged Democrats’ new legislative political map in federal court Wednesday, saying new boundaries are unfair to minorities.

Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110720/news/707209820/#ixzz1SnMtZMx1

CHICAGO:
Saturday, May 21, 2011 | 12:00 PM
Michael A. Bilandic Building
Committee Room C-600

SPRINGFIELD:
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 | 9:00 AM
Illinois State Capitol
Committee Room 114

Note: The Tuesday, May 24 hearing in Springfield will be a joint hearing of both House and Senate Redistricting Committees.

Live streaming video of these hearings will be available at http://www.IlSenateRedistricting.com.

Citizens seeking to testify at either of these hearings should send an e-mail to Redistricting@SenateDem.ilga.gov
Emails regarding the Chicago hearing should be sent no later than 4:30 pm on Friday, May 20.
For the Springfield hearing, please issue requests no later than 5:00 pm on Monday, May 24.

Complete details available on the Illinois State Democrats website.
http://www.senatedem.ilga.gov/index.php/features/1961-exclusive-legislative-district-proposal-released

Legislature Offers Access to Map Drawing Software and Public Workstation
Redistricting Chairs Pleased to Offer Key Tools

Chicago where they can draw and submit maps to be used in the Illinois remap process.

At the workstation the public can draw boundaries of Illinois Congressional, Legislative and Representative districts to be considered by the Senate and House Redistricting Committees. Users will have access to a menu of census data including racial demographics along with current boundaries of wards, house districts, senate districts and counties. Interested parties will also have access to a facilitator which can offer technical assistance. The terminal will be located on the 7th Floor of the Bilandic Building in a joint, bi-cameral space dedicated to public redistricting efforts.

Has Illinois state legislators actually entered the 21th century? I plan to check this out next week.

• League of Women Voters
• Better Government Association
• Members of the Illinois Reform Commission: Patrick Collins, Brad McMillan, Shelia Simon, David Hoffman & Duane Noland
• Illinois Campaign for Political Reform
• Common Cause – Illinois
• Illinois Chamber of Commerce
• Americans for Prosperity
• Illinois Alliance for Growth
• Illinois Farm Bureau
• Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO)
• Protestants for the Common Good
• United Power for Action and Justice
• DuPage County United
• Lake County United

This amendment defined criteria close to the State of Iowa. Check out the Illinois Fair Map Amendment website at http://www.ilfairmap.com for further details

Their efforts including HanDI to gather sufficient signatures to get the Fair Map Amendment on the November 2010 ballot had fallen short. The initiative simply did not have enough time, enough petition passers or enough money to do what needed to be done in the field.

During this initiative, it got the attention of Illinois State leadership to present their own amendment which they passed. That is why there are these public meetings now.

The Illinois Fair Map partners are monitoring the process and are attending the redistricting meetings. They continue to pursue approaches designed to reform the current redistricting process in Illinois. Again check-out their website at http://www.ilfairmap.com

Thank you for bringing Bradley Manning’s plight to the attention of our community. And thank you for framing it as you have – as a response to President Obama’s call for supporters’ praise of his administration. It caught my attention.

The Nation magazine did a nice essay on Bradley Manning’s detention. I urge you and others to read it. I am providing the link to the article at the end of this comment. I urge everyone to read this essay, but I’ll share an excerpt from it here as well:

The outrage over Manning’s confinement is to be applauded, but sadly, his experience is not a rarity. For many facing terrorism-related charges and held in US jails within the federal system since 9/11, most of them Muslim, it has become standard procedure. And despite attempts for years by Muslim-American community leaders and activists to draw attention to these domestic cases, few commentators or news outlets have raised the issue of prolonged pretrial solitary confinement when it was being applied to Muslim defendants. Commentators question the “national security” justification for Manning’s severe detention conditions and note its punitive nature, but the draconian conditions many Muslim suspects face in the United States are too often treated as understandable security measures. Indeed, most civil libertarians have restricted their public condemnations of US practices in the “war on terror” to the prisons at Guantánamo Bay and Bagram.

The rule of law is a cornerstone of our society. It is a means to hold our government accountable. I am disappointed that President Obama has chosen to ignore the rule of law in order to undertake draconian curtailment of civil liberties and human rights in the name of national security. I expected these Bush-era policies to end when Mr. Obama took office.

I am a staunch and committed Democrat and I support Mr. Obama. But in supporting him I will not abdicate my right to speak my mind and attempt to hold him accountable for his missteps. I sense that you feel the same way.

Shalom and Salaam,

Junaid M. Afeef

The Nation article link: http://www.thenation.com/article/157896/guantánamos-here-home