“Closed room” meetings at the Capitol in Springfield during the spring raised GOP eyebrows, including those of State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria), who said on social media that the maps could be illegal. | Facebook
“Closed room” meetings at the Capitol in Springfield during the spring raised GOP eyebrows, including those of State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria), who said on social media that the maps could be illegal. | Facebook
State Republican leaders say that U.S. Census figures issued earlier this month confirmed what they’ve always thought about new political maps drawn by their Democratic counterparts in Illinois: they’re “unusable and unlawful.”
“Closed room” meetings at the Capitol in Springfield during the spring raised GOP eyebrows, including those of State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria), who said on social media that the maps could be illegal.
"The official 2020 decennial counts released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week confirm that the Democrats’ redistricting plan violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law, as well as comparable provisions of the Illinois Constitution," Spain wrote on Facebook on Aug 17.
The Illinois State Constitution says that legislative boundaries must be “substantially equal,” to which Republican legislators say the Democrats neglected to take into consideration.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the GOP discovered a discrepancy of 32,446 people with the maps in question, with the 83rd District – home to 92,390 – overshadowed by 124,836 in the 5th District.
Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Lake Zurich) and House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) have asserted that the Democrats, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s apparent blessing, eschewed public input on the maps.
Pritzker has since signed the maps, telling the Chicago Sun-Times they took “the diversity of our state” into account.
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