Chicago City Wire

Latino Policy Forum director of civic engagement José Marco-Paredes can’t see how the current map redistricting process can end in a true representation of the state’s makeup.

“Unfortunately when the recent legislative maps were released, no racial, ethnic composition of districts was made available,” Marco-Paredes said during a recent hearing on the issue. “The Forum is greatly disappointed that this data was not made public. Without this information, it is impossible to analyze maps and determine if they include the considerations we made when we provided testimony in three past hearings.”

“This is a significant problem,” Marco-Paredes added.

 Marco-Paredes isn’t alone in expressing his concerns about the way the once-every-decade task of map redistricting is being handled.

While the responsibility of 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.

Republican lawmakers are pushing 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.

In addition, 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.