That mantra guided Democratic voters in Sangamon and Menard Counties as they cast their votes for state representative in the ’50s and ’60s.

And the man jokingly quoted, Allen T. Lucas, spent many years in the Illinois House of Representatives because his fellow Democrats usually marked their ballots to give him those three votes.

In those days, before 1980, you could do that...no fraud, no cheating, just exercising your constitutional right to cast three votes.

Lucas was the nephew of Scott Lucas of Chandlerville who was a member of Congress, U.S. senator and from 1948 to 1950 majority leader of the United States Senate. ( Al was best man at my parents’ wedding and my mentor when I sought my first elective office on the Lincoln Land Community College board.)

Illinois had a unique scheme for election of representatives. All legislative districts chose three representatives. The plan had been set up to overcome the severe antagonism that existed between Chicago and Downstate in the early part of the 20th century.

The idea was that there should be somewhat proportional representation in each multimember district. Voters could cast one vote for each of three candidates, or one and a half votes for each of two candidates, or three votes for one candidate. And even if the majority party ran three candidates, the ability to cast three for one ensured the election of a minority party member.

Lucas was in the minority party in his district, but by asking for three votes he assured his election. The other two representatives were always Republicans. As a result of his position, Lucas was a leader and trusted elder of the local Democrats.

Statewide, the result was that each legislative district sent two majority winners and one minority winner to Springfield. There were Republicans from every district in Democratic Chicago and Democrats from every part of Republican DuPage County.

So, both parties represented all parts of the state. And the certainty of the minority party candidate’s election produced legislators who were somewhat independent. They generally felt free to vote their own minds and consciences on issues. There was much more bipartisan cross-aisle cooperation In fact, at a time when the Democrats couldn’t agree on the election of the speaker, Paul Powell combined downstate Democrats and a fair number of Republicans to win the speakership.

Those elections didn’t require the vast amounts of money spent on House races today. Thus the power of the leaders was much weaker because they lacked the ability to raise and distribute special interest money in exchange for guaranteed votes on key bills.

The system resulted in better policy and budget-making than we see today. The leaders today effectively control the votes on most issues. That was not the case prior to 1980.

But along came Pat Quinn, who convinced the voters in 1980 that his Cutback Amendment to the state Constitution would make government more efficient and save money.

Quinn’s reform mandated singlemember representative districts. The number of members in the House was cut from 177 to 118. And, surprise, things didn’t get better. They got worse.

With no minority members in any district, the divide between the state’s regions reappeared. The map was drawn to create districts with an overwhelming majority of voters in one party. When the Democrats drew the map they arranged for a majority of Democratic districts. Very few swing districts exist. And the powerful, entrenched leadership was born.

Look at the length of representative tenure, look at the tenure of the speaker, look at the ever-worsening pension and budget crisis over the intervening years and you are looking at the unintended consequences of reform.

I am not alone in my preference for the old way. In 1995 the Chicago Tribune editorialized that the discarded system of multimember districts with cumulative voting had produced better legislators.

And in 2001 former governor Jim Edgar and Justice Abner Mikva proposed returning to the old system, with no result.

In the end the state’s terrible situation is, in part, the fault of Pat Quinn. Not Pat Quinn the governor, but Pat Quinn the reformer.

We would be wise to go back to multimember districts. We have had experience with them and they worked pretty well.

As we look for ways to make the legislature perform better, we need to be wary of quick solutions which might make things worse, as the Cutback Amendment did.

Phil Bradley of Chatham liked being represented by three people in the House. As a committeeman he saw that counting the old x-marked paper ballots was tedious and time-consuming, but today’s computer counting could handle the job easily.