Beneath the silver dome of the Illinois statehouse at Springfield there were cartographers enough for Rand McNally. Republican mapmakers and Democratic mapmakers, pressure-group mapmakers and reform-minded mapmakers, all were busily plotting their own charts for redistricting Illinois—and the outcome of their efforts may have a lot to do with who controls the U.S. House of Representatives after next year's elections.
As a result of the 1960 census. Illinois must give up one of its 25 House seats. Democrats now hold 14 of these places—including all ten from Chicago, where the surge to...