Lopsided majorities of Illinois voters, from both parties and all regions, want to take political mapmaking away from the politicians in the biggest blue state that hasn't already given that job to outsiders.
The solid sentiment was expressed in a poll released Tuesday by a coalition pushing legislation that would put creation of an independent redistricting commission to a statewide vote. The 30 groups in the Change Illinois coalition say they'll use the results to pressure Democratic Gov. J.B Pritzker to endorse the idea, which would significantly increase its chances in Springfield.
If such a referendum gets on the November ballot, which for now remains a long shot, Illinois would join Virginia as the biggest states voting to end partisan gerrymandering before the lines are redrawn for the 2020s.
The Illinois plan must get through the General Assembly by May 3 to be on the ballot. The proposed commission would be similar to the one that began work a decade ago in California, a watershed moment in the history of political reform.
Its 17 members would be non-politicians, with a bloc from neither party, and they would be required to set legislative and congressional boundaries that are compact, keep communities together and assure that minority groups have a fair shot at electing a number of lawmakers in line with their population share.
The goal would be to create more competition, both within and between the parties, in a state where those in control have historically minimized the political expense while maximizing their power. Democrats did so with impressive precision a decade ago: More than half the state House and Senate races were not even contested by one of the parties in the last two elections, and only two of the state's 18 congressional districts have changed partisan hands this decade.
In the poll, of 609 likely voters in early February, 75 percent overall supported creation of an independent commission to draw maps — including 82 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Republicans and more than three-quarters of voters in Chicago, its suburbs and the rest of northern Illinois. Support slipped as low as 63 percent only in rural downstate.
Moreover, strong majorities of both parties (and 74 percent overall) urged Pritzker to take the lead in pushing the proposal. While he endorsed the idea of amending the state Constitution to form an independent commission as a gubernatorial candidate two years ago, he has remained steadfastly noncommittal since taking office. Instead, he has said repeatedly that he would veto mapmaking legislation in 2021 if he concluded the lines were too partisan.
Illinois good-government groups have been pushing for an outsider panel all decade, and they have come up short three times so far. In 2016, the state Supreme Court cited technical grounds in ruling Illinois could not vote on a proposal that made its way to the ballot thanks to 550,000 petition signatures.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.