GOP Legislative Map Changes Vague on Details, But Claim more Hispanic and Black Representation
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) and Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) [foreground] are the GOP plaintiffs in the suit against the Democratic legislative redistricting map.
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Republicans filed their proposed changes to the Democratic legislative map in federal court Wednesday.
First of all, outside of the changes in the Metro East, where the GOP map just flips some voters between Rep. LaToya Greenwood’s (D-East St. Louis) and Rep. Jay Hoffman’s (D-Swansea) districts, the rest of the maps themselves are incredibly difficult to read. They’re buried in pdfs and don’t outline anything like streets, precincts, townships, or municipalities. So, they’re really tough to describe. (I’m working on clarification).
Secondly, Republicans themselves admit they aren’t actually changing much about the map. In their court filing, they say 87 of 118 districts in the September legislative map are untouched. Why didn’t they change more? Well, because the court suggested they use the September map as a “starting point.” for the GOP suggestions.
I’ll talk about the weird political strategy of that in a second. But first, some of the allegations from their filing with the federal court. The GOP’s main argument is this:
“Like the June Map, the General Assembly’s September Map also is constitutionally invalid and should not be adopted by the Court,” the filing reads. “The September Map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the “VRA”) by diluting the votes of minority citizens and by preventing such citizens from participating equally in the political process and having an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”
What did they change?
Per their filing, in northern Cook County, the GOP map “includes four House Districts with 50%+ Latino CVAP in Northern Cook County (House Districts 3 [Delgado], 4 [Ramirez], 39 [Guzzardi], and 77 [Willis]), as opposed to zero such districts in this area in the September Map. The Northern Cook County House Districts in the Remedial Map are also more compact than those in the September Map.”
In southern Cook county, the GOP argues their map “includes seven House Districts with [a] Latino [majority] in Southern Cook County (House Districts 1 [Ortiz], 2 [L. Hernandez], 21 [Gonzalez], 22 [Guerrero-Cuellar], 23 [Zalewski], 24 [Mah], and 32 [Nichols]), as opposed to only four 50%+ Latino [majority] House Districts in the September Map. The Southern Cook County House Districts in the Remedial Map are also more compact than those in the September Map.”
In the Aurora area, the GOP argues it made changes to “include a House District with over 65% total Latino population and 60% Latino voting-age population (House District 50 [B. Hernandez] ). Although the district is slightly less than 50% Latino [majority], the district would provide Latino voters an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”
And in the Metro East, the GOP says its map “includes a 50%+ Black [majority] House District in this area (House District 114 [Greenwood]). In contrast, the September Map cracks the Black population in this area among three separate House Districts.”
While, as of when I write this early Friday morning, I haven’t seen any sort of Democratic response opposing the changes, they’ve said they stand by the September map.
As for the political part of this, the GOP doesn’t stand to gain if these lines are adopted. But, and I’m reading between the lines here, in a statement Thursday, Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington), the top Republican on the Senate Redistricting Committee, said plaintiffs believe Democrats violated the law.
“During depositions, witnesses confirmed under oath that the maps passed by the Democrats and signed by Gov. Pritzker protected incumbents by having sitting politicians draw their own districts,” said Barickman. “As noted in court filings, Democratic lawmakers were drawing their own districts without even using data on minority populations.”
They may believe a very specific case on very specific districts can somehow convince the judges to throw the whole map out, but it doesn’t sound like they’re inclined to do that. But, you never know.