For the third time in little more than a decade, a bipartisan group is being formed to launch a voter initiative aimed at amending the Illinois Constitution to try to remove the heavy partisan influence of lawmakers in the once-per-decade redrawing of state legislative boundaries.

Unlike the current controversy in Texas, where Republicans are looking to redraw congressional boundaries to maximize GOP seats in the U.S. House for the 2026 midterm elections, the Illinois effort is aimed solely at Illinois House and state Senate boundaries.

And unlike two earlier efforts, in 2014 and 2016, that were struck down by the courts, the current proposal is more streamlined and designed to fit through the very narrow window that previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings have left for a constitutional amendment by citizens’ petition to appear on the ballot.

The formal unveiling of the effort is set for Aug. 19, when the Lincoln Forum and the Union League Club of Chicago will host a discussion with the movement’s leaders, former White House chief of staff William Daley and former congressman and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the co-chairs of Fair Maps Illinois.

Daley is a longtime Democrat who is the brother and son of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, while LaHood was a Republican congressman from Peoria who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet. He’s the father of current GOP U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood. Co-counsels for the effort are veteran election attorney Michael Dorf, a former general counsel for the state Democratic Party, and former GOP state election board member and chairman William Cadigan.

The latest effort comes as the current process for redrawing Illinois House and Senate boundaries has received serious scrutiny and follows years of criticism after its adoption as part of the state’s 1970 Constitution. Its reliance on the legislature to formulate and adopt a map has been described as lawmakers choosing their voters rather than voters selecting their representatives in Springfield, resulting in sharp, partisan gerrymandered lines that have produced few contested general election contests as primaries have become the de facto elections.

“We are in such a situation now, partly because of the way things are redistricted, where every seat is safe, members don’t have to ever attempt to reach a constituency other than their core supporters,” Dorf told the Tribune.

“This is the first step to finding a way to create, not politics-free redistricting, but at least more rational redistricting where there is a chance that members of the General Assembly will have to talk to the other side, will have to reach constituents who don’t necessarily agree 100% with them, and it’s a first step,” he said.

Under one-party rule in the last two redistricting years of 2011 and 2021, Democratic majorities in the House and Senate passed and sent to Democratic Govs. Pat Quinn and JB Pritzker map lines designed to favor the election of Democratic candidates and reduce Republican representation.

As a first-time candidate for governor, Pritzker said he supported an independent mapmaking commission to curb partisan gerrymandering, but he signed the 2021 remap passed by Democrats. Last week at an unrelated news conference, the governor said he was still in favor of a commission but said, “It’s not like I can force the legislature to do something like that.”

The current map adopted after the 2020 federal census has led to the election of overwhelming Democratic legislative majorities — 78 in the 118-member House and 40 state senators in the 59-member chamber.

Under the state constitution, when the legislature and governor are unable to implement a map into law — which has occurred during periods of partisanly divided governance — an eight-member redistricting commission is formed with the four legislative leaders each naming a member of their caucus and a non-member of the General Assembly. If the commission deadlocks, the Supreme Court submits two names, and the Secretary of State conducts a random draw for the crucial ninth partisan tiebreaking member.

The state constitution’s authors thought the threat of a random draw would be so severe it would force Democrats and Republicans to compromise. But the winner-takes-all aspect of redistricting has proven too strong. Other than the initial 1971 map, commissions went to tiebreakers in 1981, 1991 and 2001. Democrats won the draw in 1981 and 2001, while Republicans won it in 1991.

Under the latest commission proposal, the legislature would no longer be able to approve its own map and send it to the governor. Instead, the mapmaking process would go directly to a 12-member commission with the four legislative leaders each appointing one member of their caucus and two non-members of the General Assembly. If the commission were to deadlock, the same tiebreaking drawing method would be used, according to the proposal.

But unlike the way maps are currently drawn, commissioners could not consider voters’ past voting history in which they vote in Republican or Democratic primaries in configuring the map lines. “Specific people” also could not be considered, except to adhere to federal laws, such as Voting Rights Act protections for racial and ethnic groups.

Instead, districts would be based more on geographic lines in which an emphasis would be placed on compactness. According to the proposal, county, municipal and township boundaries would be followed to the “greatest extent possible,” with an emphasis on smaller counties being contained in a single district.

The state Supreme Court has previously limited citizen-initiated changes to the state Constitution to issues that both affect the structure and procedure of the legislature. To comply with that restriction, the size of the General Assembly would be determined by a formula that divides the state’s federal census population by 215,000 and would reduce the result to the nearest odd whole number.

As is currently the case, each state Senate district’s boundaries would include two House districts. Under the state’s 2020 census, the formula would leave the current number of 59 state Senate districts and 118 House districts — but the size of the two chambers could change in future decades based on population changes.

To get on the ballot, the proposition would need at least 328,171 valid signatures from registered voters by May 2026. Traditionally, supporters try to seek double the minimum number of signatures.

The previous attempts to change the Constitution’s redistricting provisions were cumbersome and involved a multi-step process to choose commission members — factors the courts decided went beyond the limited scope of structural and procedural changes in the legislative process.

Those rulings also came in court challenges mounted by allies of former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. Madigan, who served as speaker from 1983 to 2021, fiercely opposed efforts that would have taken the power of drawing the districts out of his hands. He was sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison in June on federal corruption charges related to a scheme that helped utility giant Commonwealth Edison.

Demonstrating Madigan’s close relationship with the utility, the plaintiffs recruited to fight the redistricting proposals in court were Frank Clark, former president and CEO of ComEd, in 2014 and John Hooker, the company’s executive vice president of legislative and external affairs and later a lobbyist, in 2016.

Hooker was among the “ComEd Four” who were convicted of conspiring to bribe Madigan to ensure his support for utility initiatives. Hooker was sentenced to 18 months in prison and a $500,000 fine.

Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander contributed.