Republicans, MALDEF Submit Legislative Map Changes

By Benjamin Cox on November 15, 2021 at 5:58am

Plaintiffs in three lawsuits challenging the new legislative district maps that Democrats pushed through the General Assembly earlier this year have submitted their proposed changes, which would create more Latino- and Black-majority districts in Cook County and the Metro East region.

Central Illinois’ legislative districts will be left untouched.

According to Capitol News Illinois, the filings were submitted to a 3-judge federal court panel on Wednesday. The proposed changes will be the subject of a combined hearing that is tentatively set for the week of December 6th, although exact dates have not yet been announced.

The plaintiffs in the case include Republican leaders from the House and Senate of the Illinois General Assembly along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the East St. Louis chapter of the NAACP.

All three of the suits name House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Senate President Don Harmon and the Illinois State Board of Elections, along with its individual members, as defendants. They seek an order to block ISBE from implementing the maps that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law on September 24th and to adopt the new maps that they have submitted to the court.

With the proposals largely staying the same, Republican districts that have been split up and changed by the maps passed in September will still stay the same.