Share Your Input: STOP the Democrats’ Redistricting Power Grab

Last week Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch and Illinois Democrats passed a constitutional amendment to rewrite Illinois' constitutional standard for drawing legislative maps. House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28, was filed last week and vigorously debated in the House Executive Committee and on the House Floor.

Under the current standard, maps must be "compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population." This latest proposal would instead create a ranked list of five criteria for redistricting, in order of priority:

(1) to be substantially equal in population;

(2) to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race;

(3) to create, where practical, racial coalition or influence Districts;

(4) to be contiguous; and

(5) to the extent practicable, to be compact.

The current requirements are compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population. Compactness is moved to the bottom of the list and qualified by the phrase "to the extent practicable."

House Republicans argued that this change would significantly weaken the compactness requirement and pointed to our lawsuit filed last year which alleges maps passed by Democrats violate Illinois' compactness standard in 52 of the state's 118 House districts.

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie voted NO when this measure came for a vote in the Illinois House and released the following statement:

"This is not reform. This is a political power grab.

"Illinois already has some of the worst gerrymandered maps in the nation, and instead of fixing that failure, HJRCA 28 doubles down, rigging the system for decades to come.

"This proposal deliberately weakens the core principles that should guide mapmaking-compactness and contiguity-by pushing them to the bottom and making them optional. That's not about protecting voters, that's about protecting power.

"Let's be clear: this has nothing to do with strengthening democracy. It's about locking in one-party control at any cost.

"We should be moving toward fair, independent maps. Illinoisans deserve a system where voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. Illinois deserves better."

HJRCA 28 now moves to the Senate for further debate. Because this is a constitutional amendment, it must be passed by the Senate THIS week in order for it to appear on the ballot this year for voter approval.

Leader McCombie is urging residents to contact their state senator and ask them to vote NO. Residents are also strongly encouraged to sign the petition at RedoRemap.com to voice their opposition to HJRCA 28.