Let’s take a tour of the 13th congressional district in Illinois.

It starts in East St. Louis and then moves steadily north. By the time it gets to Springfield, home of Abraham Lincoln, about 90 miles away, it takes a sharp turn to the east, reaching Decatur and finally Champaign, itself about 80 miles away from Springfield.

It’s a jagged, narrow strip of territory with no obvious rhyme or reason as it traverses six counties. It’s less a congressional district than a road trip, and bears a resemblance to the original gerrymander, a long, salamander-like state senate district in Massachusetts in 1812.

The only point of the new 13th district lines, fashioned with the redistricting after the 2020 census, was to gather together far-flung Democrats to create another Democratic congressional

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