- [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- The call for Illinois to be fair.

And a breath of fresh air, in a marsh?

In "The Cities."

(upbeat music) For months, we told you to take part in the census.

It's in your best interest because a loss of people could be a loss of representation.

Guess what?

That's just what happened in Illinois.

One of three states in the union that lost people and now it loses one of its US Representatives.

In fact, over the last 90 years, Illinois has lost 10 members to the US House of Representatives, as the state's political power on the national stage continues to weaken.

So now, with new census numbers, it's time for Illinois lawmakers, mostly Democrats, to draw new political boundaries.

Every 10 years Republicans cry foul.

And every 10 years there are calls for reform.

Actually, the group CHANGE Illinois has been making those calls long before this redistricting year.

And I got a chance to talk with its Executive Director, Madeleine Doubek, from Chicago.

There's always talk about getting politics out of redistricting.

Is that really even possible?

- Well, it's happening in a lot of places across the country.

It just doesn't seem to be happening in Illinois, at the state level.

- Well, let's be honest.

I mean, a good point, is Iowa the example?

Because of the way Iowa doing it with legislative staff approving the districts, they don't gerrymander much, at least definitely not on the congressional level where they keep county lines intact.

I mean, is that kind of what CHANGE Illinois would like to see, is something along the Iowa standard?

- Well, we actually have pushed proposals to have actual residents of the state of Illinois, not legislative staff, form a commission to draw districts.

Iowa certainly has a good way to do it, that is more non-partisan and independent than the way Illinois does it.

But, Illinois is not like Iowa in many, many ways.

We would like to see regular residents involved in this process a little bit more.

- In Illinois though, of course, the Democratic party has such a super majority in the legislature, that's power they wouldn't necessarily want to give up.

And when it comes to redistricting, there's a lot of power involved in that.

- It's really all about power, Jim.

It's about power and it's about the foundation of our democracy.

And so people really need to get involved and pay attention.

If you have experienced situations when you go to the voting booth or fill out your ballot where you really don't see much competition, that's because politicians are drawing the districts to preserve their jobs and their self-interest.

And so we really need people to rise up and advocate for a different way that is less partisan and more independent.

- I definitely want to talk about Illinois in particular, but it is such a larger scale issue.

I mean, you look at Texas, where Republicans control the legislature, or Wisconsin where Republicans control the legislature, or the Carolinas.

And you've actually seen Democratic party members just fleeing the state to avoid the vote to get rid of a quorum.

It's really a nationwide problem, is it not?

- It is a nationwide problem.

And there is, at least, a partial attempt to try to address it through H.R.

1, which is known as the For The People Act.

It's passed the House and is now in the Senate.

The problem is that the Senate is so divided right now that I don't know that it's going to go anywhere in time to help us for this redistricting cycle.

- When you say H.R.

1, are you talking about a Federal H.R.

1 or a State H.R.

1?

- Yes.

- I'm sorry?

- Federal Resolution H.R.

1, For The People Act includes a lot of democracy reforms.

One of which is to mandate nationwide that independent commissions draw our congressional districts.

So that would take care of things at the federal level, but it doesn't really address anything within the state of Illinois, with our State Senate and our State House, where we have seen just scores of races that have only one candidate or that are really not competitive.

- You were pointing that out, 62 legislative races were uncontested in 2020 in Illinois.

That's an amazing number.

- It is, out of 177 seats.

They weren't all up for election.

So the percentage is even higher, but it's...

The past several election cycles, been close to half of the races that have only one candidate.

When you factor in races that are not really competitive, that second candidate doesn't really have a chance, that percentage has jumped as high as 80%, in the past few election cycles.

- Now, if you take Chicago out of that equation, which is Cook County being so Democratic, is it still that same way for downstate and Western Illinois as well?

- It really is.

You know, there's just not enough competition.

And part of that is natural, self-selection.

We tend to live in areas where people think the way we do, and have the same political leanings that we do.

But we can still definitely do a better job.

When politicians draw their districts, they are...

The first thing they're thinking about is, "How do I draw this so I can keep my job and pick my voters?"

Instead of voters picking them.

- Let's take a look, specifically for Western Illinois, the 17th Congressional district.

Cheri Bustos has just announced she's not going to run for reelection in 2022.

She won a very close race against Esther Joy King, the Republican, a newcomer Republican, in what would be described as a relatively safe, Democratic district, the 17th.

Which edges a little into Rockford, edges a little into Peoria, and includes the Illinois Quad Cities.

Do you think that with Democrats controlling redistricting legislation in the coming year, that something will happen in whatever is configured as a 17th district, or whatever the number would be called in the future, that will make this area more Democratic?

I mean, is that a concern of yours?

- Well, I think that Democrats in the super majority are certainly going to try their best to do that.

I think, nationally they're going to try to draw as many Democratic seats as possible.

And so, there certainly will be an effort to try to shore up things in that area so that a Democrat can win again.

I would be shocked if it were any other way.

No matter who has the power, whether it's Democrats and Republicans, and I've watched both happened in Illinois, the party in power draws the districts to their advantage.

Plain and simple.

- And it has a huge impact for at least a decade.

- It has a huge impact on every single one of us for an entire decade.

And it also affects lots of policy decisions that we all care about.

So, this may seem like an esoteric subject for a lot of people, but it is the foundation of our democracy.

And when elected officials are drawing our districts it's a form of voter suppression.

When they quash competition at the ballot box, that's voter suppression.

- As you know, in Illinois when you take a look at two of the linchpins for a political reform, you take a look at redistricting as well as term limitations.

I mean, those are two major issues that people want to see and we repeatedly see, as far as polls are concerned, that it's a popular issue.

- Absolutely.

In fact, CHANGE Illinois commissioned a scientific survey last year, and we purposefully picked a Democratic pollster that a lot of Democrats in Illinois use so that we were sure that they would be confident in the results.

And we got historic levels of 75% support for independent redistricting in the state.

That's something that people have been clamoring for for years.

A survey by the Paul Simon Institute out of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale has shown similar results over many, many years.

- So tell me about the short-term, because the long-term would be, I would assume, a constitutional amendment or some change along that line, legislative.

What can be done in the short term though?

- Well, unfortunately our efforts for the past several years to push for a constitutional amendment have been stymied by lawmakers.

And now the Governor is going back on his word to veto a partisan map.

So we've been pushing for more transparency and accountability in the process.

It's looking like the Democratic super majority is going to propose maps and try to get them approved here, in May.

And so people need to pay attention and start contacting their elected officials, and ask them to unveil those maps and then allow for public hearings and time for all of us to understand what's been drawn and react to it.

Ten years ago, when we went through this process, the maps were unveiled on the second to last day of session and were pushed through very quickly, through the House and Senate in Springfield, in a matter of 24 to 36 hours.

And that's just not accountable, transparent democracy.

- I remember that too, and the outcry was fierce.

But really, there was no political ramifications afterwards.

- You know, this is a problem and it's frustrating, because you can't really hold people accountable when they're picking their own voters, right?

It makes it very difficult to hold them accountable.

But, what we really need is for people to keep rising up and telling their elected officials, they expect better.

- You pointed out that you'd like to at least see public hearings after the lines are drawn.

And as you know, the Democrats have been holding statewide, public hearings in regards to redistricting already.

No lines are seen.

So do you think it's just a dog and pony show right now to say, "Hey look, we did ask the public."

- It's hard to conclude anything else, Jim.

They've held scores of these hearings.

I would say close to 90% or more of them have been during hours 9:00 to 5:00, when most people are busy with work and they can't attend.

There has been very little effort to publicize them and let people know about them.

There's a lot of talk amongst officials about wanting to make sure that everybody's voice is heard, but they won't tell us what data they're going to use to draw these maps.

They're doing very little to publicize the hearings.

There's no accommodations being made for people for whom English is not their first language or who may have disabilities.

So, how do people meaningfully participate in these hearings when they don't have the census data, and they don't know about the hearings, and they don't have any sense for how their communities have changed over the last 10 years because we don't have the census data yet.

- You also brought up your organization, an interesting point is that you want to see a change in what's called Prison Gerrymandering, which is not something I had ever really considered but where you count inmates of the state prison system can also determine the lines drawn for political reasons.

- Right.

It tends to, as it stands now, prisoners are counted at their place of incarceration.

People who are incarcerated are, typically in Illinois, the average term is a little bit more than two years.

But they're being counted at that prison address for the next decade.

And they don't get any representation there.

When is the last time you heard about a State Representative or a State Senator providing services for a person who happens to be incarcerated?

It doesn't happen.

And so what it tends to do is inflate the power and the representation for those districts that contain prisons.

And it steals that representation from communities of color, primarily, in the city and the surrounding suburbs.

Because that is frankly where most of the people who are incarcerated live.

And so those communities deserve that representation, to have it back in their hands where it belongs.

And so in fact, we did succeed in getting some prison gerrymandering language in and approved and signed into law.

But at the last minute, in the wee hours of the morning, the effective date was changed until the middle of the next decade.

So, the first chance we have to address this inequity is in 2030 now.

- Yeah, exactly.

Because because of the middle of the decade does you no good right now.

- Absolutely.

- Let's talk about what people can do.

Because as you have seen over the last few months, this is a polarized, but also much more politicized, society that we live in right now.

Getting people fired up, let's say, to support changes in how Illinois draws its lines, may be greater now than ever because of social media and the fact that people now believe, in some ways, they do have a stronger voice.

- And you know, when politicians draw their districts, that really contributes to the hyperpolarization that we're seeing in our society right now.

Because what tends to happen is that elected officials, incumbents, really only care about whether they're going to have a primary challenge.

And that tends to push them to the fringes of their party.

And so it contributes to this hyper partisanship that we have.

So people really need to get involved and understand that one of the solutions to that, and trying to find more instances of compromise, that will benefit all of us is for us to stand up and say no more to gerrymandering.

- Madeleine Doubek, Executive Director of CHANGE Illinois.

In a moment, a refreshing change of pace, in a marsh.

But first, Laura Adams is ready to help us enjoy the entire month of May as she takes us Out & About.

- [Laura] This is Out & About through May 18th.

Ballet Quad Cities present a performance with special guests Mo Carter at the Adler Theater, May 8th.

Plus, there's still time to catch the Church Basement Ladies in "You Smell Barn" at Circa through the 15th.

Tomfoolery on Tremont, at Renwick Mansion features Nate Craig on the 2nd, and Ryan Mason on the 15th.

Or join a naturalist for a guided natural history hike through the Black Hawk State Historic Site May 5th starting at 10:00.

Veto League baseball, a Quad City based, free, adult slow-pitch baseball league takes place every Saturday at Northwest Park in Davenport.

Everyone is invited to play no matter what their skill level.

Or enjoy Pork Tornadoes Live at Rhythm City Casino the 8th at 8:00 PM.

The Quad Cities welcomes back the QC Craft Beer Week, May 10th through 15th, check out the breweries on Facebook.

While the Cornbelt Running Club hosts a 24 hour race at the North Scott Eldridge High School track starting at 7:00 AM, on the 15th.

Or go shopping at Meet the Makers: a Pop-Up Shopping Event at The Rust Belt, the 15th starting at 9:00.

While New Kingdom Trailriders hold their Hot Rod for Horses Car Show & Vendor Fair in Sherrard, May 15th, starting at 9:00 AM.

The Quad City Symphony Orchestra present an evening with "Hamilton" star, Renee Elise Goldsberry, in LeClaire Park, May 15th.

For more information, visit WQPT.ORG.

- Thanks Laura.

We're still waiting for the day when musicians can hit the stage in a packed house and play the music they wrote, perform the song so many people love.

In the meantime, we're featuring some of those musicians who took the stage at Moline's Black Box Theatre.

And that includes Jonathan Turner who performed his original called "Midwest Boy."

(piano playing) ♪ Just a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ And a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ Alone in New York ♪ ♪ Alone in the world ♪ ♪ Night after night the boy and girl wondered ♪ ♪ If they'd ever find the one ♪ ♪ Or would their hungry hearts be forever born to run ♪ ♪ They thought where are you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ Where are you ♪ ♪ To share with me the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Just a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ And a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ One day they met online ♪ ♪ They let their feelings unfurl ♪ ♪ With the touch of a mouse they clicked ♪ ♪ Got together the very next day ♪ ♪ The date she was born ♪ ♪ On their date she was reborn to stay ♪ ♪ She felt, I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ I found you ♪ ♪ For the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Just a Jersey girl ♪ ♪ And a Midwest boy ♪ ♪ She gave him hope ♪ ♪ He brought her joy ♪ ♪ Then one afternoon in June ♪ ♪ She asked him to be his bride ♪ ♪ Though it was raining out the the sunshine streamed inside ♪ ♪ He said, I love you ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ I love you ♪ ♪ And I love you ♪ ♪ For the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Now we're so happy ♪ ♪ To be here on your wedding day ♪ ♪ To bask in your glow and let you know ♪ ♪ That we love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ We love you ♪ ♪ And we'll love you for the rest of our lives ♪ - Jonathan Turner and "Midwest Boy" performed at the Black Box Theatre in downtown Moline.

Nahant Marsh in Davenport has just reopened its education center, a big first step toward returning to some sort of normalcy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And if you think of it, a marsh and wetlands may be a perfect, safe, educational spot for you and your family.

We talked with the education director, Amy Loving, about the marshes plans for this year and what it offers for families or just adults.

And why the marsh could be a lifesaver the next time the river rises.

So Amy, you gotta be like every other organization, you're just jonesing to get open again and get the public over at Nahant Marsh.

- Yeah, we are super excited to have the building open this weekend.

And we've been doing programs, but the center hasn't been open to the public, except for special programs that we're offering.

But, we're jazzed to start seeing more faces and more kids around here.

- Tell me about it, because I mean, you've got basically two opportunities at Nahant Marsh.

You have the education center, which is a building that you go indoors.

But you also have a very large wetlands area that you can do outdoors.

So let's talk about what you're doing indoors right now.

That's pretty much the thing that was somewhat off-limits over the last year.

- Right.

So we still tried to offer programs as the restrictions were starting to be lifted, just on a really small, limited basis.

And still trying to serve the community in the safest way that we could.

- So what will be changing now?

I mean, you're going to be allowing more people in, I would assume you're going to do some social distancing, some face masks, whatever is required.

- Yeah, face masks will still be required within the building.

We have a capacity limit for folks that are in the building, 'cause we'll still have staff around too.

Summer, we'll have interns.

So we really want to make sure that we're keeping people safe inside the building.

Because, we've only got so much space.

So we just want to make sure that people are being safe, but we'll do the best we can.

- Yeah, you'll make do because 2020 was such a tough year.

How'd you get through it?

- Well, it was definitely tough at first, trying to figure out from an educator standpoint, trying to figure out how are we going to still provide education to students if we're not able to go into the schools, if they're not able to come out here and see us.

So that was a real challenge for us in the beginning.

'Cause we're used to a non-classroom setting.

- [Jim] Sure hands-on.

Totally hands-on, right?

- Yeah, and very hands-on.

So trying to switch gears and thinking, "How am I going to teach virtually?"

And we did a lot of training, a lot of research.

We set ourselves up with all sorts of things, made ourselves a little classroom, virtual classroom in here.

So we were able to zoom in to some of the classrooms and do some programming.

So that was really great.

And do a lot of webinars.

- I think a lot of people have learned, the groups that have interacted with children, have gone to schools, or have had school groups come to them, you guys have all learned how to do this better.

Do you think some of the stuff that you've learned over the last year, as far as even what we're doing right now, a zoom call, or a zoom lesson, that you'll be incorporating in the future?

- Yeah I think we'll continue to offer webinars.

You know, one cool thing about doing webinars and virtual programs is you are able to reach a larger audience.

There were times when we had close to a hundred people logged in to some of our webinars.

My grandma was able to attend a program, and she lives in Peoria.

So, it was really great that we were able to reach a wider audience.

And I think that kind of opened our eyes to embracing some of this technology a little bit more and seeing how we can still do what we do, have outdoor engaging activities, but still be able to reach people on a broader level.

- Talk about the borders that have been broken down, because you can teach about a marsh to some kid in Arizona, who may not be near a marsh of any type.

- Yeah we sure could.

- Yeah, that's what's kind of cool about the whole thing.

Let's talk about what's going on face-to-face, person-to-person, coming up this summer, 'cause you are offering summer camps, once again.

- Yes, we are.

We've got about 15 different offerings.

Everything from pre-K on up to sixth grade.

Some camps are half day, some camps are full day, and then we've always done an annual week-long camp.

So we'll continue that this year, as well.

And again, we're going to try to stay outside as much as we possibly can.

And we do that anyways with summer camp.

So we're kind of used to that all-weather scenario.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and you also have some make-and-take.

Because when we're talking about a hands-on experiences it's also kind of nice to be able to do something there and keep it.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So one really cool thing that we've started this year is called Wild Woodworking.

One of our AmeriCorps naturalist, Alison, she's good at working with wood and so she wanted to do these workshops.

We've done bird houses, we've got a three-tiered planter workshop coming up tomorrow.

We're going to be doing some solitary bee houses, some squirrel picnic tables, so all sorts of fun stuff.

- Yeah.

We're talking about events also for adults, not just kids.

- Yeah, and that one's definitely geared towards adults.

But, we've had some classes where they wanted to bring their student along or their kid along with them, and they were able to do so.

Other opportunities for adults, we just started our 10th Master Conservationist Program.

Which engages adults into learning about conservation in Iowa and how they can become natural stewards of the state, and of natural areas in general.

- Absolutely, and Nahant Marsh is really becoming quite the focal point as far as a native species, whether it's insects or if it's plant life.

And you're really seeing some things bloom there, that weren't seen years ago.

- Yeah, so the flood did a lot of damage in a lot of different places.

But, it really helped to suppress certain invasive species because the water was up for so long.

So there were certain areas where we were seeing Blue Flag Iris show up that we hadn't seen before, or at least not so much of it wasn't there before.

Swamp milkweed, all kinds of things started really popping up in areas where some of those invasive species were able to be held back.

So, 2020 also allowed us to do a lot of outdoor projects.

So removing invasive species, planting trees.

I think they planted over 250 trees out here last year.

We were able to have a lot of volunteers come out here and remove invasive species.

And as we remove those invasive species, that allows for those new species, the native species to come in.

And allows for us to kind of clear the field so that we can lay down and spread more seed.

- 'Cause I like the fact that you pointed out that you're doing things, but I love the fact that it's Mother Nature.

It was flooding, and Mother Nature found a way to do what you probably had been trying to do over the last five years.

I mean, to give back to the natural habitat that Nahant was known for.

- Yeah, and Mother Nature knows how to kind of fix itself if we just stand back and let it, I think sometimes.

- The other thing that we learned from that flood is how valuable Nahant Marsh was, as far as filtering that flood water, as it continued to head South.

I mean, it gave an expansion point for the river but it also really filtered, what is it, millions, if not billions, of gallons.

- Yeah, I think it may be in the billions, I'm not sure, but definitely millions of gallons of water were were held here during the course of the flood.

We definitely do need more wetlands around.

We need to protect the wetlands 'cause they... As a river community, they're going to be our saving grace if we continue to have more of them and protect them.

- And 2021 year of Nahant Marsh, right?

I mean, this is the year to see what happened over the last two years and how that area has really changed right now.

- Yeah, definitely a lot of changes, but we're looking forward to the future.

We've got a lot of things that we're wanting to do down here, expand our trails, and we're going to keep working hard at it.

- Amy Loving, Education Director for Nahant Marsh on Davenport's far, Southwest side.

Check out all they have to offer at NahantMars.org.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer, thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on "The Cities."

(soothing music) - [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home & Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.