I’m contacting you today to sound the alarm about a proposed constitutional amendment from Illinois Democrats which would further weaken standards for fair legislative maps and make partisan gerrymandering even easier.
In furtherance of their endless appetite for absolute power, Speaker Chris Welch and Illinois Democrats aim to enshrine what they once claimed was defect into future design. HJRCA 28 is a constitutional amendment filed by Democrats that would change the long-standing fairness standard in the Illinois Constitution used to judge legislative maps. House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28, was filed just this week by Speaker Chris Welch in response to concerns over a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, Louisiana v. Callais. The proposal would rewrite Illinois’ constitutional standard for drawing legislative maps.
Under the current standard, maps must be “compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population.” Welch’s proposal would instead create a ranked list of five criteria.
The Amendment to amend the Legislature Article of the Illinois Constitution on decennial redistricting to require Legislative and Representative Districts to be drawn, in order of priority: (1) to be substantially equal in population; (2) to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race; (3) to create, where practical, racial coalition or influence Districts; (4) to be contiguous; and (5) to the extent practicable, to be compact. The current requirements are compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.
Compactness is moved to the bottom of the list and qualified by the phrase “to the extent practicable.” I, along with my House Republican colleagues, argue that change would significantly weaken the compactness requirement. We point to our lawsuit filed last year which alleges maps passed by Democrats violate Illinois’ compactness standard in 52 of the state’s 118 House districts.
House Republicans are sounding the alarm that this amendment is moving in the Illinois House this week. The bill passed House with only Democrat votes and now heads to the Senate. I voted NO. We are urging residents to contact their state senator and ask them to vote NO. Residents are also strongly encouraged to sign the petition at RedoRemap.com to voice their opposition to HJRCA 28.