Cutback Amendment

The Cutback Amendment is an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that abolished multi-member districts in the Illinois House of Representatives and the process of cumulative voting.[1] Before the amendment Illinois voters could vote three times for one candidate or spread their votes between two or three candidates. Three members were elected per district. When the Cutback Amendment was approved in 1980, the total number of House representatives was reduced from 177 to 118. The movement to pass the bill was largely led by Pat Quinn and Bus Yourell.[2]

The amendment was passed via a referendum and popularly seen as a way to punish the legislature for voting itself a 40% raise.[3]

It amended Article IV, Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Illinois.[4]

Passage

In order to be approved, the measure required either 60% support among those specifically voting on the measure or 50% support among all ballots cast in the 1980 Illinois elections.[4]

Alongside the Illinois Sale of Tax Delinquent Property Amendment, it became one of the first two amendments to be successfully made to following the 1970 passage of the Constitution of Illinois.[4]

Illinois Size of State House of Representatives Amendment[4][5]
Option Votes % of votes
on referendum		 % of all ballots
cast
Yes 2,112,224 68.70 43.38
No 962,325 31.30 19.77
Total votes 3,074,549 100 63.15

Calls for repeal

Since the adoption of the Cutback Amendment, there have been proposals by some major political figures in Illinois to bring back multi-member districts. A task force led by former governor Jim Edgar and former federal judge Abner Mikva issued a report in 2001 calling for the revival of cumulative voting,[6] in part because it appears that such a system increases the representation of racial minorities in elected office.[7] The Chicago Tribune editorialized in 1995 that the multi-member districts elected with cumulative voting produced better legislators.[8] Others have argued that the now-abandoned system provided for greater "stability" in the lower house.[9]

gollark: Although, being internet-based, it's not actually *broadcasting* without anyone connected, although it is encoding.
gollark: Into the void, from the arch, yes.
gollark: OIR™ runs a 128kbps Opus stream, which is somewhat worse quality than the 320kbps MP3 files it streams from.
gollark: Not directly! The audio quality is better if I just use the same playlist/audio files but directly on my laptop.
gollark: OIR™

References
  1. "Cutback Amendment". Illinois Issues. November 1980. Archived from the original on 2008-05-16. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  2. Schaller, Robert. "The 'Cutback Amendment' and diversity in the House". Illinois Issues. Sangamon State University. pp. 9–10. ISSN 0738-9663.
  3. "Illinois drives to revive cumulative voting". April 21, 2006. Archived from the original on July 10, 2012. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
  4. "Illinois Constitution - Amendments Proposed". www.ilga.gov. Illinois General Assembly. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  5. "Illinois Size of State House of Representatives Amendment (1980)". Ballotpedia. Retrieved 29 March 2020.
  6. "FairVote - Illinois' Drive to Revive Cumulative Voting". Archive.fairvote.org. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  7. "FairVote - Black Representation Under Cumulative Voting in Illinois". Archive.fairvote.org. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  8. Farrell, John. "Cumulative Voting – Illinois | Institute for Local Self-Reliance". Newrules.org. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  9. "32 Illinois Law Review 1937-1938 Cumulative Voting in Illinois". Heinonline.org. Retrieved 2015-06-01.


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