Illinois Valley Times

After Democrats held a closed-door meeting to determine how district lines may be drawn, a Republican sponsor of bipartisan legislation to aims to make redistricting more fair and transparent recently, saying the current process is anything but.

And yet the people still want it to be fair and transparent, Illinois State Senate Republican Deputy Leader Sue Rezin (R-Morris) said in a Facebook post.

Illinois State Senate Republican Deputy Leader Sue Rezin (R-Morris) on the Senate floor pre-COVID19 restrictions | senatorrezin.com/

"Throughout the redistricting hearings we heard over and over again how the people wanted more transparency in the process," Rezin said in her May 10 post. "Meanwhile, Democrats have been meeting behind closed doors to review secret drafts of the map."

That is not transparency, Rezin said.

"The people should pick their elected officials, instead of having their elected officials pick them behind closed doors," she said.

Rezin has represented the 38th District since her appointment to the Illinois Senate in December 2010. She'd been elected to the elected to the Illinois House of Representatives the previous month and was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat of Gary G. Dahl, who had resigned. She was appointed Senate GOP Caucus leader in 2015 and was chosen as deputy leader this past January.

Illinois Senate District 38 includes Bureau, Grundy, Kendall, LaSalle, Livingston, Putnam and Will counties.

Rezin's comments followed a May 6 WCIA news report about House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Hillside) staff meeting with "dozens of House Democrats" behind a locked door on the Capitol Complex grounds. The meeting was about how news district lines would be drawn and took place while the news station's "cameras were rolling," WCIA said in the news report.

There was nothing to see there, Welch said.

"Meeting with members is nothing new," Welch’s spokeswoman, Jaclyn Driscoll, said in the WCIA news report. "In fact, the room we're talking to members in is actually the same we met in 10 years ago. This is and will remain a transparent process."

The Speaker's office also promised that members of the public will have plenty of time to review proposed legislative maps and to offer feedback before lines are finalized.

"It's just preliminary drafts for each district," Rep. Nick Smith (D-Chicago) told WCIA as the elected official was on his way into the room for the no-public-allowed-inside meeting.

This year is critical for redistricting in Illinois because U.S. Census data is about to be released and redistricting supposedly is based on that data. Under Illinois' Constitution, state lawmakers must pass a new legislative map by June 30. If that doesn't happen, an eight-person bipartisan panel is supposed to be created. Should that group be locked in a tie, Illinois' Secretary of State would randomly choose a ninth member to break that tied.

Democrat lawmakers in Springfield - with veto-proof supermajorities in the General Assembly - are running the once-in-a-decade redistricting season, racing to craft new legislative and congressional maps and get Gov. J.B. Pritzker to sign off on it by June 30. Missing that deadline would mean Democrats probably would lose their partisan advantage to gerrymander the process.

The still-ongoing COVID pandemic has complicated the process. The new legislative maps, ostensibly, are supposed to be based on U.S. Census data, but that data isn't expected to be ready this year until September because of the pandemic.

And, still, the majority of Illinoisans want fair maps.

Rezin sponsored Senate Bill 1325, also called the People's Independent Maps Act, would remove politicians from making decisions about redistricting and place that power in the hands of Illinoisans. The bipartisan SB 1325, 18 Senate Democrats and all of that chamber's Republicans as co-sponsors, missed an April 30 deadline for third reading. Instead, the bill was referred to the Assignments Committee, where it likely will die.