SPRINGFIELD â Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced a new bill that would hand over the process of drawing new legislative and congressional district maps to an independent commission that would be required to use official Census Bureau, rather than survey estimates, to draw the maps.
The latest bill, introduced Tuesday as an amendment to Senate Bill 1325, mirrors a proposed constitutional amendment that was introduced in 2019. That proposal, which had 37 cosponsors, died in the 101st General Assembly without receiving a hearing.
Every 10 years, states redraw their legislative and congressional district maps to align with the most recent decennial census. That process is being complicated this year, as the census data needed to complete those tasks has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors.