Chicago City Wire

Cook County Circuit Court clerk and former state legislator Iris Martinez is pushing for more diversity within the court system.

Martinez recently took her stand while speaking at the Oct. 8 Senate Redistricting Committee hearing on the subject of congressional maps.

“Public Act 101-477, the law that required the judicial subcircuit boundary redistricting process that this committee and the General Assembly has started had a simple purpose,” Martinez said. “That purpose was to enact a process that ensured the judicial system reflects the diversity of the population that it serves going forward.”

As a state senator, Martinez  pushed House Bill 2625, which sought to establish districts that better reflected the people they were supposed to represent.

“I am happy to join you today and to see the GA moving forward and making progress that is long overdue,” she said. “The last time that the GA redrew these maps was in 1991. We all know that the population of Cook County has shifted dramatically over those 30 years. And just like in 1991, the diversity of the bench does not mirror the county.”

Martinez points out that recent data compiled by the office of the Chief Judge of Cook County finds only one of five sitting circuit court judges are black, under one in 10 are Latino/Latina and just 3% are Asian, with the remainder being white. By comparison, blacks and Latinx each account for one-fourth of the total population in Cook County and Asians make up 8 percent.

“Subcircuit boundaries are an important tool to increase the diversity of those sitting on the bench,” Martinez said. “But that tool is useless if the boundaries dilute the diversity of our communities and do not reflect the residents of the subcircuits. As the population evolves, the judicial system should reflect that evolution.”

Martinez argues not only has the race and ethnicity of the city’s and county’s population changed, so too have the places and areas many of them call home.

“The judiciary should reflect the population that it serves,” she said. “It’s wonderful that we now have a process to make sure that is the case.”

With many of the redistricting hearings related to the process being held remotely, Republicans have already blasted the process as a “dog and pony show” where everyone that wants to have a voice is not being heard.  

Some GOP lawmakers say they have been kept in the dark about the plan.

“You have to be able to look at the map that they are working with so that you can critique it and present your own ideas instead of blindly having nothing to review,” state Sen. Steve McClure (R-Springfield) told The Week. “And then they’re gonna drop a map, probably hours before we vote on it or the day before, the night before. It’s just not a transparent process and it’s bad for state government.”