Chicago City Wire

CHANGE Illinois Executive Director Madeleine Doubek is convinced lawmakers in Springfield never gave themselves the chance to do the best job that could be done in redrawing the latest congressional maps.

“Our first recommendation to this committee is to use the 2020 Census data as the basis for the congressional maps rather than American Community Survey (ACS) data,” Doubek said during a Senate Redistricting Committee hearing held earlier this month. “Ignoring advocates' previous warnings against the negative consequences of using ACS estimates as a replacement for 2020 Census data led to, for the first time since the state constitution was adopted in 1970, having two Illinois General Assembly redistricting maps signed into law within a matter of months.”

Democrats redrew the maps after the first version they passed led to lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of the process, which, in some ways, Doubek argues was even more flawed the second time around.

“Lawmakers revisiting the legislative maps for a second time created additional confusion and alienated community voices from the process to a greater degree,” she said. “People had even less time and opportunity to participate than were provided in the spring. Each time we come back here for another remap, the process should be improved as lessons are learned from previous mistakes.”

Doubek said CHANGE also wants to see lawmakers pay closer attention to the federal Voting Rights Act in putting a system in place.

“It would be in the best interest of the committee and the public for committee members to publicly announce the prioritization of all of the redistricting criteria they are considering so that Illinoisans can better understand the committee's intentions in drawing the map,” she said. “Those criteria should prioritize the federal Voting Rights Act first and foremost. We can save our communities a lot of time and resources by ensuring that the next decade of congressional districts respect and prioritize the federal Voting Rights Act ahead of any other considerations.”

Doubek said that communities of color are being forced “to pursue lengthy and costly legal avenues to achieve the representation they deserve.”

It's part of the reason why she said CHANGE is also demanding more community input in redrawing the maps, something she laments was far from the case in the latest maps that were drawn.

“Even advocacy organizations that track remapping had trouble providing meaningful feedback on the legislative maps that were released and voted on within a day,” she said. “There needs to be a real and meaningful dialogue between lawmakers and community groups who come before this committee with recommendations for how their communities can best be reflected in the institutions that are here to represent them.”