Chicago City Wire

Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Chicago policy director Justin Valas recently told a House Redistricting Committee he doesn’t see how lawmakers can find out all they can about a district without using the best tools available to them for doing the job.

“A lot of the data is iterative building on ACS (American Community Survey) data being supplemented by current census data,” Valas told Chicago City Wire. “We know that a lot of communities have been undercounted and so I think limiting ourselves to only looking at the raw numbers without that deeper community conversation doesn't give us the full picture of our community.”

As the debate over making the once-in-decade task of map redrawing a fairer process rages on in a year where Census Bureau data officials have already indicated their research won’t be available before a June 30 deadline, Republicans have proposed the People’s Independent Maps Act as the answer.

The measure would give the state Supreme Court the power to appoint 16 independent citizens to a redistricting commission within 30 days of passage. The members would be equally split politically.

“I think I would just stress the importance of having these conversations with our communities, with the folks that are living in the area is a helpful addition to whatever numbers we're looking at,” Valas added. “I know it gets complicated because of the need to use those data points, but I think on the whole this expression has a better understanding of what's really going on.”