GOP sues Democrats over new legislative maps, arguing citizens were ‘robbed’ and deserve ‘their day in court’

State Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, third from right, joins other Illinois House and Senate Republicans at a news conference last month called to ask Gov. J.B. Pritzker to veto the newly drawn maps. | Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP file

In their suit, the Republican leaders say the General Assembly passed its redistricting proposal “despite lacking the official population counts from the census.”

Republicans took the Democrats and state election officials to court Wednesday over the new legislative maps, filing a federal lawsuit that argues the boundaries signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker are unconstitutional because they are not based on actual U.S. census population figures.

State House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs and Senate GOP Leader Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods name House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Senate President Don Harmon, members of theirs staffs and the Illinois State Board of Elections in the suit.

“The tone-deaf Democratic party of Illinois has robbed citizens of a fair and transparent legislative map-making process, and I plan to be a conduit for Illinois citizens who demand honesty by ensuring they also have their day in court,” Durkin said in a statement.

In their suit, the Republican leaders say the General Assembly passed its redistricting proposal “despite lacking the official population counts from the census.”

The estimates Democrats relied on from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey “are not intended to be, and are not, a proper substitute for the official census counts” and any maps relying on those “estimates cannot create substantially equal legislative districts,” the lawsuit contends.

Durkin and McConchie requested a special three-judge panel hear the case.

Along with asking the court to rule the map unconstitutional, the leaders are asking for the court to take the map-making out of the hands of legislators, either through the creation of a bipartisan commission “with the responsibility for enacting a redistricting plan” or for a court-appointed “special master” to draw “valid” maps.

A spokeswoman for Welch did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Harmon said senators on the redistricting committee would likely make a statement.

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State Rep. Elgie Sims, left, and state Sen. Omar Aquino, who headed the Democratic efforts to draw the new maps, met with the Sun-Times Editorial Board in April over Zoom.

When Pritzker signed the maps into law on Friday, the Democratic governor said the “boundaries align with both the federal and state Voting Rights Acts, which help to ensure our diverse communities have electoral power and fair representation.”

“Illinois’ strength is in our diversity, and these maps help to ensure that communities that have been left out and left behind have fair representation in our government,” Pritzker said at the time.

But in a statement released on Wednesday, Durkin said, “The partisan process upon which the legislative maps were drawn flies in the face of the strong recommendations made by countless advocacy groups and citizens who testified at the redistricting hearings.”

Rich Hein/Sun-Times; Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP

Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, left; House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, right.

McConchie said in a statement the suit is the “best option to advocate for the 75 percent of voters who were refused an independent process and a map created with accurate data.

“More than 50 independent groups asked the Legislature not to use American Community Survey sampling estimates, and instead wait for the actual census counts to be released, but the politicians in power ignored them,” McConchie said, arguing the American Community Survey “estimates have never before been used for redistricting in Illinois, and we plan to challenge the legitimacy of these maps to the fullest extent of the law.”

Rather than wait for the actual census figures, Democrats pushed the maps through the state House and Senate last month to beat a June 30 deadline.

Had they failed to pass maps by then, the state constitution mandates the creation of an eight-person bipartisan panel to take over the task. And when that evenly split panel inevitably deadlocks, a ninth member is randomly chosen by the Illinois secretary of state — giving the Republicans a 50-50 chance of taking over the map-drawing tools.

Democrats argued that was the minority party’s strategy all along, waiting for their own chance at power, not favoring an independent panel.

House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, accused Republicans last month of trying to “take [the map-making] decision away from folks with a name out of a hat, in the hope that perhaps you could attain power again.”

But Republicans, including state Rep. Ryan Spain of Peoria argue the Democrats’ remap strategy is straight from “the Mike Madigan playbook.”

“In a further attempt to skirt any transparency, Democrats dropped partisan maps drawn in a locked room by politicians who hand selected their voters,” the Peoria Republican said when the Democrats released their initial maps on a Friday evening last month.

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