The U.S. state of Illinois held an election on November 3, 1964, for all 177 members of the state's House of Representatives for the 74th Illinois General Assembly, alongside other state and federal elections. Due to the state's failure to redistrict, all of the seats were elected at-large by plurality block voting, with voters choosing up to 177 candidates to support. Each party was only allowed to nominate 118 candidates. All 118 Democratic candidates won, flipping control of the chamber to Democrats with a two-thirds supermajority.
From 1901 to 1954, the state had failed to conduct legislative redistricting, at which point a constitutional amendment to force regular redistricting of the House was passed. Under its provisions, if the legislature and a backup redistricting commission failed to enact a map, an election would be held at-large. For the 1960 redistricting cycle, the state's governor was Democrat Otto Kerner Jr., while both chambers of the legislature were controlled by Republicans. The legislature passed a map along partisan lines which was vetoed by Kerner, and the commission faced similar partisan deadlock. Following a ruling by the Supreme Court of Illinois, an at-large election was held.
The ballot for the election was long. Both parties nominated their candidates at party conventions, which were made up of delegates elected on the old legislative lines. Candidates did little campaigning outside of their home regions. Due to straight-ticket voting and the coattails of Lyndon B. Johnson in the concurrent presidential election, every Democrat was elected, receiving more votes than every Republican. The Republicans elected were mainly those endorsed by Chicago-area newspapers.
Reactions to the election were mixed. Politicians in both political parties received significant criticism for their failure to redistrict. Some pundits predicted significant voter confusion, and a high number of undervotes, but this did not happen. The legislature elected in 1964 pushed for governmental reform, starting the process that eventually led to the 1970 rewrite of the Constitution of Illinois. This election is the only time the lower house of a state legislature has been elected entirely at-large in the United States.
Background Constitutional procedure Prior to the 1960s, Illinois had redistricted its House of Representatives only once since 1901. While the Constitution of Illinois stated that the legislature was required to redistrict the state after each United States census, it did not provide any method of enforcement if the legislature did not. Population shifts in the state had resulted in Chicago having a higher percentage of the state's population, and downstate legislators did not want their region to lose influence. Therefore, starting in the cycle after the 1910 United States census, legislators chose not to redistrict the state and the courts chose not to intervene to force redistricting. A constitutional convention, approved by voters in 1918, aimed to deal with the issue, but voters rejected its proposed constitution in 1922. The 1901 legislative map had 51 districts, with 19 located in Cook County, which contains Chicago and many of its suburbs.
As the population of Chicago and Cook County grew, the level of malapportionment continued to increase. In the 1930 United States census, Cook County contained a majority of the state's population, but it continued to contain only 37.3% of the state's legislative districts. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, residents of the Chicago area, most notably John B. Fergus and John W. Keogh, argued before both state and federal courts in unsuccessful attempts to force redistricting. In the 1930s, there were various efforts supported by governors Louis L. Emmerson and Henry Horner to allow Cook County proportional representation in either the Illinois House of Representatives or the Illinois Senate, while limiting its representation in the other, but these proposals died due to strong bipartisan opposition from downstate politicians.
By 1953, William Stratton, the newly elected governor of Illinois, viewed redistricting as a priority amidst increasing public pressure over malapportionment. Through a number of compromises, he managed to convince the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to establish new redistricting procedures. The amendment allotted the 58 districts of the Illinois Senate into three areas: 18 to Chicago, 6 to Cook County, and 34 to downstate. The amendment, written to keep the Senate in downstate control, did not provide for periodic reapportionment of the Senate, intending to lock in the districts drawn in 1954 indefinitely, but it did provide that for the House's 59 districts, requiring redistricting after every decennial U.S. census. Initially, 23 districts would be assigned to Chicago, 7 to suburban Cook County, and 29 to downstate. To ensure regular reapportionment, the constitution contained two separate procedures in case the legislature failed to redistrict. First, redistricting would be done by a ten-member commission, with five members appointed from each political party by the governor. If that commission failed to create districts after four months, an at-large election would be held.
Opposition to the amendment was disorganized, while supporters included many state politicians and newspapers. The new redistricting process was approved by voters in a 1954 referendum with about 80% of the vote. Following the passage of the amendment, new districts were drawn in 1955. At this time, both chambers were Republican-controlled, as was the governorship, leading to a relatively non-controversial redistricting cycle. Each chamber created a map for their own chamber and passed the map that the other chamber created, with the maps being signed by Stratton. The map used for the House of Representatives was fairly apportioned, while the Senate's map still retained significant malapportionment. However, the maps were overall considered a significant improvement.
1960 redistricting cycle Following the 1962 elections, Republicans controlled both chambers of the legislature, albeit with a one-seat majority in the House. Governor Otto Kerner Jr., however, was a Democrat, resulting in a divided government. Redistricting for the House was required to take place in 1963, in preparation for the 1964 elections. In data from the 1960 census, the state's population had shifted towards suburbs of Chicago, particularly in Cook County, Lake County, and DuPage County. Using population-based apportionment, two districts would be shifted from Chicago to the suburbs, and two more from southern Illinois to northeastern Illinois. On April 23, 1963, Republicans in the legislature introduced a plan to that effect. Democrats responded on the same day with a plan to instead have districts that would include parts of both Chicago and its suburbs, allowing the city to have control of 23 districts, arguing that this was fair given Chicago's under-representation in the Senate.
Democrats received no Republican support for their redistricting plan, while Republicans failed to pass their plan over southern Illinois lawmakers in their caucus, who objected to the plan's proposed removal of two districts from their area. As a compromise, Republicans passed a plan that would only remove one district from southern Illinois, at the expense of a district planned for Lake County. However, this bill was vetoed by Kerner on July 1, as he deemed it "unfair". Kerner had previously promised to veto any partisan redistricting plan, and his veto message referred to the deliberate under-representation of Republican areas (which occurred as a result of the compromises made to appease downstate lawmakers). Kerner's veto was challenged at the Supreme Court of Illinois, where it was upheld. The failure of the legislature to redistrict caused the responsibility to fall to the backup commission.
Special commission deadlock Each party's state central committee nominated ten candidates for the redistricting commission. Kerner appointed five from each party on August 14, 1963. The five Democrats appointed were George Dunne, finance chairman (and future president) of the Cook County Board of Commissioners; Ivan Elliott, former Illinois Attorney General; Alvin Fields, mayor of East St. Louis; Daniel Pierce, a member of the Democratic state central committee; and James Ronan, the chairman of the Democratic state central committee. The five Republicans appointed were Edward Jenison, a former U.S. representative; David Hunter, a former state legislator; Michael J. Connolly, the Republican leader in Chicago's 5th Ward; Eldon Martin, an attorney from Wilmette; and Fred G. Gurley, former president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. Dunne served as the Democratic spokesman on the commission, while Gurley served as the Republican spokesman. Kerner avoided appointing some of the more prominent politicians whom parties nominated for the commission: he did not appoint former governor Stratton, nominated by Republicans, and did not appoint Paul Powell, the Democratic minority leader in the House, or John Touhy, the Democratic minority whip.
The redistricting commission deadlocked over a similar issue to what prevented a bipartisan map from passing the legislature – namely, the number of districts in Chicago. Democrats on the commission argued for maintaining 23 districts in Chicago, and refused to accept a map with less than 22, while Republicans would only accept a map with 21 districts in the city, with two districts being moved to the Cook County suburbs. Starting on November 14, the Republicans on the commission began boycotting the meetings due to Democrats' insistence that Chicago control 23 districts. Republicans only resumed attending the meetings on December 12, two days before the final deadline to agree on a new map. Negotiations continued up until the deadline, with Democrats eventually proposing a map with only 22 Chicago-based districts, but the commission ultimately could not reach a compromise. The commission faced harsh criticism in editorials for its failure to agree on a map, with particularly strong criticism directed at the Democratic members for insisting on more Chicago-based districts than the city's population warranted.
Court rulings and special legislative session Before the commission's ultimate failure to create maps, Republican state representative Gale Williams sued to overturn Kerner's veto of the legislative map, arguing that the governor had no authority to veto a redistricting bill. Kerner's actions were defended by the Illinois Attorney General, William G. Clark. This lawsuit was initially dismissed by Sangamon County Circuit Court judge Dewitt S. Crow on July 16. Williams appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which dismissed his case on November 13.
Two lawsuits were decided by the Supreme Court on January 4, 1964. First, a lawsuit filed by Republican state representative Fred Branson challenged the legality of the commission, arguing that since the legislature had not "failed to act" on redistricting, as they had passed a map, a commission could not be established. This lawsuit instead requested that the election be held using the previous redistricting cycle's map. The court rejected this argument, ruling that an at-large election had to take place. Secondly, a lawsuit filed by Chicago lawyer Gus Giannis argued that an at-large election also had to take place for the State Senate. In response to this case, Attorney General Clark issued a ruling stating that an at-large election would be required for the Senate as well. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, ruling that the constitution would only mandate an at-large election for the Senate if the chamber had not been redistricted in 1956, as the constitution did not otherwise require the Senate to be redistricted.