ABSTRACT
Like many other states, Illinois found reapportionment a source of con siderable political trouble in 1961. Illinois, indeed, has a history of ap portionment difficulties, for reasons obviously rooted in the geographic, social, and political make-up of the state. The legislature was not re apportioned at all between 1901 and 1955. The state was the source of the Cole grove v. Green dispute,1 and in 1954 it experienced a keen battle over a constitutional amendment providing for redistricting of the General Assembly. It elected a congressman-at-large from 1942 to 1946 because of the problems involved in redistricting. The 1961 legislative sessions added another chapter to this history of acute partisan reap portionment struggle in its handling of the problem of reconstituting the state's Congressional districts. When 1960 census returns indicated that Illinois' Congressional delegation would be reduced from twenty-five to twenty-four, the state faced the prospect of redistricting in 1961 or elect ing all its congressmen at-large in 1962. The 1954 General Assembly apportionment amendment had provided that election districts for the state House of Representatives not be redrawn until 1963; thus, that even more onerous political task was fortunately disentangled from the job of Congressional reapportionment in the 1961 legislative session.
