NAACP Sues Over Alleged East St. Louis Racial Discrimination in Legislative Map
The Malcom Martin statue overlooking the Gateway Arch at the park named after Martin in East St. Louis. The NAACP in East St. Louis has sued over alleged racial “cracking” in the Democrat-drawn legislative maps.
Another minority group has filed a lawsuit against legislative maps passed in May and edited in August.
The East St. Louis branch of the NAACP, Illinois state conference of the NAACP, and the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) filed the suit in federal court in Chicago Friday.
The suit alleges Democrats moved Black voters from East St. Louis into mostly white district represented by Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Swansea), minimizing the influence of Black voters in their current district, which is currently represented by Rep. LaToya Greenwood (D-East St. Louis).
Removing Black voters from a majority black district and redistributing them to other districts is known as “cracking” a district. The NAACP argues that constitutes racial gerrymandering, which is illegal under federal law.
S.B. 927 used race as the predominant factor in cracking the Black population in the East St. Louis area in House District 114 [Greenwood] to provide safe seats for the White Democratic incumbents in House Districts 112 [Katie Stuart (D-Edwardsville)] and 113 [Hoffman].
In its drawing of House District 114, [the legislative redistricting plan] deviates from its stated redistricting principles by cracking a politically cohesive community of Black voters in the East St. Louis area and submerging them in an adjacent district, House District 113, which is comprised of predominately White municipalities represented by a White Democratic incumbent.
The resulting House District 114 fails to provide Black voters with equal opportunities to elect their candidates of choice, in violation of the United States Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
It isn’t clear yet whether the case will run separately or be folded in with the existing suits filed by Republicans and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).
MALDEF filed an amended complaint with the court earlier this month. I’m told Republicans filed theirs earlier this month, but we haven’t received a copy yet.
We asked spokespeople for House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon to respond to the suit, but we did not hear back from them.
