A panel of federal judges in Chicago have given Illinois Democrats a chance to redraw the state’s legislative districts for a second time, this time to account for actual U.S. Census data.
On Aug. 23, the judicial panel granted the request from attorneys representing House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and State Sen. President Don Harmon to pause proceedings in legal challenges to the Democrat-drawn maps that had been hurried through the Illinois General Assembly, and signed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, earlier this year.
Those maps were approved at the end of May, despite not yet having actual population counts from the Census Bureau on which to base the methods by which the legislature drew the new boundaries for the new districts from which Illinoisans would elect their state representatives and senators for the next decade.
Under the new order, proceedings in the litigation against those maps have been paused until Sept. 1, the day following the end of a special legislative session called by Welch and Harmon specifically for the purpose of drafting and approving new maps.
In the order, the judges instructed the Democratic majority to take into consideration all of their constitutional obligations when drawing the maps, as well as the claims leveled against them in two lawsuits challenging their first try at drawing maps to withstand legal review.
After the first version of the maps were approved and signed into law by Pritzker, Republican legislators, State Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, and State Sen Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, filed suit in federal court. Durkin and McConchie lead the Republican legislative caucuses in their respective houses of the General Assembly.
In that legal challenge, Republicans asserted the Democrats drew maps that violate voters’ constitutional rights by placing them in unequal districts, which were drawn using unofficial population estimates through the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, rather than actual data from the decennial U.S. Census.
The complaint noted the Census Bureau itself says those ACS estimates are not suitable to use in drawing legislative district maps.
The Republicans asserted the use of such population estimates would inevitably result in districts that would be revealed to not be close enough in population, once actual Census data was released.
While such Census data is normally released in the spring following the Census, the release of the data was delayed by several months in 2021, in part, because of problems in collecting data amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, under the Illinois state constitution, the Democratic majority had until June 30 to draft and approve new legislative district maps. If maps were not approved by that date, the task would fall to special redistricting commission. The partisan majority of that commission could be determined by chance, through the drawing of lots.
Faced with the prospect of not meeting the June 30 deadline, and potentially losing partisan control of the redistricting process, Democrats approved the maps using ACS population estimates.
The maps were also challenged in a separate lawsuit by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, of Chicago. The MALDEF lawsuit similarly asserted Democrats had violated voters’ rights by rushing through maps using faulty population data, resulting in maps that discriminated against Latino voters, in particular.
The Republican lawsuit, however, also asked the judges to toss out the maps as illegal and void.
In a later filing, the Republicans said the release of the Census data in mid-August proves their point, as an analysis revealed the districts were unbalanced enough to run afoul of limits set for decades by the U.S. Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court has held legislative districts cannot be more than 10% out of balance, the Democratic maps can vary in population by as much as 30%, Republicans noted.
They argued such failures should demonstrate the Democrats never drew a legally valid map, violating the June 30 constitutional deadline.
Democrats have not publicly challenged the Republican district population analyses. Rather, they have asserted they can merely return to Springfield and draw new maps to address the problems.
In the Aug. 23 order, the judges granted the Democrats time to try again.
However, they also urged the Democratic majority “to take into account the views of the Plaintiffs (MALDEF and the Republicans) in crafting any amended plan with the objective of presenting for the Court's consideration a plan that satisfies all constitutional and statutory obligations...”
The judges did not rule on the Republican request for summary judgment, saying that motion remains “under advisement,” along with motions from the Democrats and the Illinois Board of Elections to dismiss the lawsuit.
The case is being heard by a panel of three federal judges. They include:
- Michael B. Brennan, who serves on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, and was appointed by former President Donald Trump;
- Jon E. DeGuilio, who serves as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. DeGuilio was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2010; and
- Robert M. Dow Jr., who serves as a district judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, in Chicago. Dow was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2007.
Democrats and state of Illinois defendants are represented in the case by attorneys Michael J. Kasper, of Chicago; Devon C. Bruce, of the firm of Power Rogers; Heather Wier Vaught, of LaGrange; Sean Berkowitz and Colleen C. Smith, of Latham & Watkins, of Chicago; and Adam R. Vaught, of Hinshaw & Culbertson, of Chicago.
Republican lawmakers are represented by attorneys Phillip A. Luetkehans and Brian J. Armstrong, of the firm of Luetkehans Brady Garner & Armstrong, of Itasca; and Charles E. Harris II, Mitchell D. Holzrichter, Thomas V. Panoff, Christopher S. Comstock, Heather A. Weiner, Christopher A. Knight and Joseph D. Blackhurst, of the firm of Mayer Brown, of Chicago.