Pritzker signs new legislative maps, citing ‘fair representation’ — but GOP dubs governor a liar who ‘cannot be trusted’

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker holds a post legislative news conference at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on Tuesday. | Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP file

Pritzker signed the three new maps outlining new boundaries for districts for the General Assembly, the Illinois Supreme Court and the Cook County Board of Review. The hotly contested political maps will chart the next decade of elections in Illinois.

SPRINGFIELD — Just three days after saying he had still not had a chance to review the newly redrawn maps for legislative and other governmental districts, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed them into law on Friday, locking in the Democratic drawn boundaries and stoking Republican outrage.

As late as Thursday, the Democratic governor told the Chicago Sun-Times he was still looking to make sure the proposed maps aligned with the Voting Rights Act of Illinois, the Voting Rights Act of the United States, Supreme Court decisions and population trends to reflect diversity and fairness.

Apparently finished with all that on Friday, Pritzker signed the three new maps outlining new boundaries for districts for the General Assembly, the Illinois Supreme Court and the Cook County Board of Review.

The hotly contested political maps will chart the next decade of elections in Illinois.

“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. “These district boundaries align with both the federal and state Voting Rights Acts, which help to ensure our diverse communities have electoral power and fair representation.”

Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP file

Gov. J.B. Pritzker answers questions about the budget, redistricting and other issues during a news conference in Springfield on Tuesday.

But Republicans accused Pritzker of lying, breaking a 2019 campaign pledge to veto any map drawn by politicians, rather than an independent commission, a position the GOP has also argued for.

“Governor Pritzker lied to the people of Illinois when he pledged to veto a politician-drawn map,” said Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy. “Governor Pritzker promised to take politicians out of the mapmaking process and hand it over to an independent commission that would be required to follow the Voting Rights Act and protect minority representation.

“Instead, he let politicians pick their own voters, split up numerous communities of interest, and use faulty data all in an effort to rig the system for those already in power. Pritzker didn’t keep his word and cannot be trusted.”

But in his statement announcing that he was signing the maps, Pritzker said he was satisfied they adhered to the federal and state voting laws and accounted for shifts in population spotlighted in the U.S. Census’ American Community Survey.

Over GOP objections, the Democrats pushed the maps through the state House and Senate last Friday after a series of hearings. The were scrambling to beat a June 30 deadline.

Had they failed to pass maps by then, an eight-person bipartisan panel would be created to take over the task.

When that panel inevitably deadlocked, a ninth member would be 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 control, not favoring an independent panel.

Last week, House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, accused Republicans 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.”

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, said Republicans were “trying to run [out] the clock and gamble on a random drawing.”

Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register via AP file.

State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, argues that new legislative maps are partisan as he joins Illinois House and Senate Republicans outside Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office to urge him to veto the maps during a news conference last Saturday.

Pritzker’s signature is the culmination of a months-long process in which Illinois Democrats took testimony from community groups over the course of nearly 50 hearings. The vast majority of these groups asked Democrats to wait for delayed U.S. Census data instead of using the American Community Survey data, which the groups and Republicans contend is less reliable.

In the final hearing before legislators approved the maps last Friday, Dilara Sayeed, President of the Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition, begged Democrats on the panel to wait.

“We are crying out for representation at a time after we have gone through so much under an administration in the federal government that marginalized all of us,” she said. “Until you send a message that inclusion counts, it’s just talk. And while you allow a community like ours to have zero representation … we can’t move forward. We can’t have 10 more years of this.”

from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/3cgNOXA