A group of Latino Illinois voters have joined their names to the list of those challenging the new legislative district maps approved by the state’s Democratic supermajority, saying the Democrats’ failure to wait for actual Census data has resulted in an unequal district map that violates voters’ rights.
On June 11, attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, of Chicago, filed suit in federal court against the Illinois General Assembly’s two leading Democrats, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon, as well as the Illinois State Board of Elections.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five named plaintiffs, Julie Contreras, Irvin Fuentes, Abraham Martinez, Irene Padilla and Rose Torres. According to the complaint, all plaintiffs are registered voters. The complaint identifies Contreras as a resident of the new House District 60, in Lake County; Fuentes as a resident of the new House District 1, on Chicago’s Southwest side; Martinez, a resident of the new House District 86, in Will County; and Padilla and Torres, as residents of new House District 6, which includes portions of Chicago’s West and South sides.
The lawsuit is the second such legal challenge filed in the past two days against the Democrat-drafted and Democrat-approved legislative district maps.
On June 10, Illinois’ two most prominent Republican lawmakers, State Sen. Dan McConchie, of Hawthorn Woods, and State Rep. Jim Durkin, of Western Springs, filed a complaint, also in federal court in Chicago, asking a panel of three federal judges to toss out the maps, and order the creation of a bipartisan commission to draft new ones.
Like the Republican lawsuit, the lawsuit from the Latino voters takes aim at the mapmaking method and processes used by the Democrats in crafting the maps behind closed doors earlier this spring.
Both lawsuits assert the Democrats moved too quickly to approve the maps, using flawed population estimates, rather than waiting for actual U.S. Census data, certified for use with drawing new legislative district maps.
The Census Bureau has indicated data for redistricting would be made available to the states by Aug. 16, delayed by difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats who drew the maps, however, have hailed the maps as an accomplishment, given the lack of Census data.
Democrats said the General Assembly needed to approve maps during the General Assembly’s most recent legislative session, ending over Memorial Day weekend, because the Illinois state constitution requires such maps be approved by June 30. If not, the mapmaking process could be sent to a bipartisan commission, which could ultimately result in partisan control of the process being decided by a tie-breaking drawing of lots.
Republicans have said Democrats pushed the new maps through when they did, simply to avoid the chance they might lose control of the opportunity to use the redistricting process to further cement their grip on lawmaking power in Springfield.
Critics of the Democrats’ mapmaking actions, however, contend, by using the flawed data the state’s Democratic majority and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker have created a new Illinois state legislative district map that will result in districts with populations that are too unequal.
Just as in the Republican lawsuit, the Latino voters say the Democrats’ use of five-year population estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey falls short of the accuracy needed to establish districts that are actually equal, and which don’t violate the U.S. Constitution’s “one person, one vote” guarantee of equal protection for all voters.
Both lawsuits noted the ACS data is not considered reliable for use in drawing legislative districts, even by the Census Bureau.
The Republican lawsuit specifically accused the Democrats of creating unequal districts which discriminate against Latino voters.
The Latino voters’ lawsuit does not include such claims of discrimination.
The Latino voters’ lawsuit notes that the Democratic mapmakers still have not released the actual population estimates and unspecified “other election data” they used to draw their new districts.
The Latino voters’ complaint asks the court to issue orders declaring the Democrats’ maps violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment; blocking the State Board of Elections from using the new maps in any way to operate future elections; and requiring state lawmakers to draw new maps using Census data “that comply with and comport with the one-person, one-vote principles of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The Latino voters are represented in their case by MALDEF attorneys Griselda Vega Samuel, Francisco Fernandez del Castillo, Thomas A. Saenz and Ernest Herrera, of Chicago and Los Angeles.