Illinois Democrats could have drawn more legislative districts in which more than half the population was either Latino or Black, but they chose not to, because they believe Illinois white voters are much more willing to vote for Black or Latino candidates for office, lawyers for some of the state’s most powerful Democrats told federal judges.
A trio of groups challenging the Democrats in court, however, said Democrats violated the voting rights of Latino and Black Illinoisans, by choosing to protect Democratic incumbents and tighten their hold on absolute partisan power in Springfield, at the expense of increasing opportunities for Black and Latino voters to select their own candidates of choice for state legislative offices.
A panel of three federal judges in Chicago will soon decide the fate of an Illinois state legislative district map.
Griselda Vega Samuel
| voices.uchicago.edu
Lawyers for the leaders of the state’s Democratic supermajority in Springfield squared off in a six-hour long hearing on Tuesday, Dec. 7, before the judicial panel, against attorneys for Republicans and advocacy groups for Black and Latino Illinois voters.
The various parties have been locked in a high stakes political court fight since this summer, when Illinois Democrats, led by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and State Sen. President Don Harmon, first attempted to enact a new district map, as is required by the state constitution every 10 years.
That map will then be used to determine the districts in which Illinois voters will select their next state representatives and state senators.
Democrats approved an initial version of the maps in June, even though official U.S. Census data was not yet available. Democrats indicated those maps were approved at that time using their best guess concerning how to divide the population, in a political maneuver to block Illinois Republicans from using a tactic under the state constitution to wrest control of the mapmaking process.
Those June maps were immediately challenged by Republican lawmakers and advocacy groups for Illinois’ Latino and Black voters. They asserted the maps improperly relied on population estimates, resulting in discriminatory and unbalanced districts.
After Census data revealed Republicans and Black and Latino objectors were correct, Democrats tried again, passing new maps quickly at the end of August, with little input from the public. The maps were signed in September by Gov. JB Pritzker, also a Democrat.
However, the challengers again asserted the new maps also had deep problems. The challengers particularly claimed Democrats drew the maps merely for partisan political advantage, at the expense of the voting power of minorities, and Latinos, in particular. They asserted the Democratic maps violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
Three federal judges empaneled to hear the combined cases threw out the June maps, but reserved judgment on the September maps. They invited the challengers to submit maps of their own, to help illustrate the alleged problems with the Democratic map.
The challengers filed their so-called “remedial map” proposals in early November. They noted their maps would increase the number of majority Latino state House districts from just four in the Democrats’ plan, to 11. And they would raise the number of majority Latino state Senate districts from two to five.
The new map would also create a new additional majority Black state house district, centered on East St. Louis, in downstate Madison County.
Illinois politicians and parties are closely watching the court’s decision. The district boundaries will need to be set by mid-January, when incumbent state lawmakers and their challengers will need to begin the election petition filing process.
While judges had indicated they did not believe oral arguments were needed in the case, they still hosted a day-long hearing Tuesday.
Judges centered the hearing on what they believed to be key questions in the case, including how much emphasis Democrats placed on protecting incumbents, versus protecting the voting rights and political influence of Latino and Black citizens in Illinois.
Attorneys for the challengers claimed that is exactly what Democrats have done with their maps.
The challengers noted Democrats could have drawn more districts in Illinois that were majority Latino or Black, but intentionally chose not to. Instead, they asserted, Democrats shifted significant populations of Black and Latino voters into districts with large white populations, to win even more Democratic seats or to protect white Democratic incumbents against possible Latino or Black challengers.
Attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Foundation (MALDEF), who are representing a group of Latino voters, pointed particularly to the southwest side of Chicago, where they said lines were intentionally drawn around the town of Cicero to divide Latino populations.
Attorneys for the NAACP noted Democrats “cracked” and “diluted” the Black vote in East St. Louis, one of the few cities in southern Illinois with such a sizable Black population. They accused the Democrats of not drawing a new House district to preserve the strength of the majority Black legislative district there, but instead dividing the Black population between two districts, in a bid to protect two powerful Democratic incumbents, State Rep. Jay Hoffman, who is white, and State Rep. Latoya Greenwood, who is Black.
Attorneys for the Republicans noted the Democratic effort to protect incumbents and preserve party power has also been seen in the recent trend of Democratic lawmakers in Illinois who have opted to retire while in office, sometimes shortly after they win reelection, allowing Democratic Party leaders to appoint their replacements.
That, in turn, gives those appointees the power of incumbency when they seek election, decreasing the chance for voters – often including Latino and Black voters – to choose their representative for themselves.
In response to these accusations, lawyers for Illinois Democrats said the challenges are misguided, as they rely solely on the need for “majority minority” districts. The Democratic lawyers called that approach “the route of yesterday.”
The Democratic legal team is led by attorney Michael Kasper, a longtime associate of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Rather than diluting the Black and Latino influence in Springfield, Kasper and his colleagues said the Democratic map would actually increase the number of Black and Latino state lawmakers in the state capitol.
They argued Illinois has changed dramatically through the decades, and white Democrats, in particular, have moved beyond racial voting patterns of the past.
By drawing districts with sizable populations of Black and Latino voters, those voters can partner with white voters to elect Black or Latino candidates to Springfield.
They noted that Illinois’ Democratic caucus is already 48% minority, led by 34 Black state representatives and senators. And they noted Illinois voters have elected Black or Latino Democratic politicians to many of the most powerful offices in the state, including Speaker of the House, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller and the mayor of Chicago. They said this signals that Black and Latino voters should no longer need the protection of majority minority districts to leverage their collective political power and advance their interests in Springfield.
And Democrats further noted that Democratic Party leaders have largely selected Black and Latino candidates to replace retiring lawmakers, further boosting the electoral chances of racial minority candidates.
MALDEF attorneys, however, said voting rights laws are intended to allow voters to select their own preferred candidates, not merely “who the Democratic Party believes should be in that office.”
Judges hearing the case include Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Michael B. Brennan; U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; and U.S. District Judge Jon E. DeGuilio, of the Northern District of Indiana.
Brennan was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Dow was appointed by former President George W. Bush. And DeGuilio was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
Should the judges find the Democratic maps are illegal, they could opt to redraw the maps in a court-led process, or send the maps back to the Illinois General Assembly for revisions, under court guidance.
Challengers, however, asked the judges not to give the maps back to the Democrats in Springfield. They asserted Democrats had already twice flouted the law and the court, in approving maps driven entirely by politics, with minimal public input, and should not be given another chance.
Republicans are represented by attorneys Julie A. Bauer and Nathan R. Gilbert, of Winston & Strawn LLP, of Chicago. They are also represented by attorneys Phillip A. Luetkehans and Brian J. Armstrong, of the firm of Luetkehans Brady Garner & Armstrong, of Itasca; Charles E. Harris II, Mitchell D. Holzrichter, Thomas V. Panoff, Christopher S. Comstock, Heather A. Weiner, Christopher A. Knight and Joseph D. Blackhurst, of Mayer Brown LLP, of Chicago; and John G. Fogarty, of Clark Hill PLC, of Chicago.
The Latino voters are represented by attorneys Griselda Vega Samuel, Francisco Fernandez del Castillo, Thomas A. Saenz, Ernest Herrera and Denise Hulett, of MALDEF, of Chicago and Los Angeles.
The NAACP is represented by attorneys Aneel L. Chablani, Ami Gandhi and Clifford Helm, of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and attorneys Jon M. Greenbaum, Ezra D. Rosenberg, James T. Tucker and Ryan R.T. Snow, of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, of Washington, D.C.
The Democratic lawmakers are represented by Kasper; attorneys Elizabeth H. Yandell, Colleen C. Smith and Sean Berkowitz, of the firm of Latham & Watkins; Adam R. Vaught, of Hinshaw & Culbertson, of Chicago; Heather Wier Vaught, of La Grange; and Devon C. Bruce, of the Power Rogers firm, of Chicago.