A three-judge federal court panel Thursday dismissed a slew of lawsuits that sought to fight a new Illinois redistricting map created by state Democrats.
The suits, brought by state Republicans, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACP, argued that the redistricting map passed by the Democrats last summer disenfranchised minority voters in some districts.
“The [redistricting] plan ensures that historically undercounted minority communities will continue to be underrepresented and lose their right to an equal vote in the legislature by foregoing the official census counts in favor of the [American Community Survey] estimates,” the Republicans argued in their initial suit.
The judges noted in the ruling that the issue of Democrats using estimates from the survey was addressed by the state in August after the official census numbers were available.
The judges disagreed in their decision that the adopted map disenfranchised minority voters, writing in their decision that none of the plaintiffs “proved that race predominated in the configuration of any of the challenged districts,” and failed in their arguments that the map violated the law.
“This ruling is a disappointment, but that does not mean we will ever stop fighting for independent maps in Illinois,” state Republican Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, said in a statement. “While we didn’t get the outcome we believe the people of Illinois deserve, the fact remains that Gov. [J.B.] Pritzker and his cronies broke their promises and failed Illinois families.”
When Republicans filed their lawsuit last summer, they claimed census figures Democrats used to create the map were based on population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey rather than actual census figures, which were delayed this year.
Republicans hoped the judges would rule Democrat leaders’ map unconstitutional and asked for the court to take the authority of making the redistricting map out of legislator’s hands and create either a bipartisan commission or appoint a person as a “special master” to draw the map.
The Democrats pushed the maps through the state House and Senate in May to beat a June 30 deadline, which, had they missed, would have led to the creation of an eight-person bipartisan panel to take over the task.
The judges noted the partisan creation of the map in their ruling Thursday, writing that “Indeed, the record could not be more clear that partisan politics ... controlled that decision,” but added that was “legally acceptable.”
