Chicago City Wire

Nonprofit Utopia LLC founder Valerie F. Leonard says the ongoing map redistricting process has only left her with more questions about its findings.

“I was hoping that the committee chairs would have walked us through the district maps,” Leonard said in a video from a recent hearing on the issue. “I would have loved to know how the proposal was developed. I would have loved to have an overview of the districts, the populations that support them and give us a sense for what’s new, what’s the same and then open up for questions. But that didn’t happen.”

Republican lawmakers contend there’s a good reason for all of that, insisting that Democrats have sought to carry out the process with little transparency and by only hearing from Democratic voices.

While the task of map redistricting typically falls to the party in charge, Republicans had hoped for a fairer process this cycle given U.S. census Bureau data usually relied on in drawing the maps isn’t expected to be available by an end-of-June deadline.

The Illinois constitution states that lawmakers and the governor have until June 30 to approve a map. If that deadline is missed, an eight-member bipartisan commission must be formed with four members from each party to finish redrawing the districts by Aug. 10.

Illinois State Conference NAACP President Teresa Haley says it all just paves the way for more gerrymandering.

"Every voice is important," she said at a recent Redistricting Committee public hearing. "The NAACP is opposed to so many things, such as packing and stacking and cracking, and we've seen it over and over again."

Packing, stacking and cracking are all terms that refer to ways to dilute the voting impact of minority populations for political gain.

Republican lawmakers are now pushing proposed legislation known as the People's Independent Maps Act as a solution. The measure would completely remove lawmakers from the job of redrawing maps and give the state Supreme Court the power to appoint 16 independent citizens to a redistricting commission within 30 days of passage.

Many Republican lawmakers are demanding that Gov. J.B. Pritzker honor the commitment he made while still a gubernatorial candidate when he vowed to veto any unfair map drawn by politicians.