Republicans May Not Submit Full Redistricting Counterproposal to Federal Court
Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods), one of the named plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit over legislative redistricting. Lawyers appeared to signal Friday the GOP wouldn’t ask for the entire Democratic map to be thrown out, instead limiting challenges to specific portions of the map.
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Attorneys for Republicans and groups representing Latino and African American interests signaled Friday they won’t ask a panel of federal judges to throw out the entire Democratic legislative map adopted in September.
In a telephone status hearing this morning in U.S. District Court in Chicago, lawyers for GOP Leaders Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) and Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) along with plaintiffs from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the NAACP in East St. Louis indicated they likely won’t ask the court to throw out the entire map.
Instead, they told the judge they’ll submit “remedial” plans only in disputed districts. Though, it isn’t clear exactly how many districts each group is challenging. It is assumed MALDEF will limit their complaints to Latino districts and the NAACP will likely focus on the 113th and 114th districts in St. Clair County that was part of their suit alleging “cracking” of Black East St. Louis residents.
Attorneys for House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon signaled they plan to stand by the map passed in September and will oppose changes presented by the plaintiffs.
Those remedial map proposals were originally due Monday, but the court pushed that deadline back to next Wednesday.
A Republican spokesperson and the GOP leaders on the House and Senate Redistricting Committee did not respond to questions about what their maps will look like.
Also, a petition to intervene by Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar (D-Chicago), former Speaker Madigan’s replacement in the House, was not discussed in the status hearing Friday. In fact, her attorneys weren’t even present. Both the plaintiffs and defense were scheduled to file arguments for or against Guerrero-Cuellar’s entrance in the case by Friday afternoon.
Cuellar alleged her district has been split in the new map and she has the right to represent a majority Latino district.
It is possible, if the courts don’t agree to an earlier ruling, the case could go to trial in early December.