Lawmakers are considering an omnibus elections bill that would push back the date of the 2022 primary elections amid other major changes to the state’s
Largely on partisan lines, lawmakers passed an omnibus elections bill Monday that would push back the date of the 2022 primary elections amid other major
Partisan outrage over new proposed district lines for the Illinois Supreme Court was on full display Friday in the Illinois General Assembly. The House
Credit Illinois House
If Democrats have their way, the state s five Illinois Supreme Court districts could be redrawn this year for the first time in more than five decades.
Democrats in the General Assembly released a new Illinois Supreme Court map Tuesday afternoon, to the surprise of legislative Republicans, who claim they were kept entirely out of the loop on the mapmaking process.
Rep. Tim Butler, of Springfield, who serves on the House Redistricting Committee, said he had no notice of the court maps being released on Tuesday.
“I have asked repeatedly…if the majority planned to redistrict the Supreme Court. I never once got a response to that. I think this discussion of transparency and engagement, especially with the minority party, just goes straight out the window,” Butler said at a joint redistricting hearing on Tuesday.
Credit Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock
Illinois lawmakers opened their first public hearing Tuesday on a proposed set of new House and Senate district maps with Democrats and Republicans still at sharp odds over how the maps were drawn and whether or not they are fair.
House and Senate Democrats unveiled the proposed maps late Friday. They were reportedly drawn using population estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey because official numbers from the 2020 census will not be available until August or September.
Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., who was hired as a consultant by the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, testified that in his opinion, ACS data is acceptable to use for redistricting because in the five years leading up to the 2010 census, those estimates for Illinois were off by only about 0.3 percent.