{"id":569,"date":"2022-01-28T08:35:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T08:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=569"},"modified":"2022-01-28T08:35:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T08:35:40","slug":"gov-pritzker-signs-measure-to-redraw-illinois-congressional-district-maps-the-state-journal-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=569","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Pritzker signs measure to redraw Illinois' congressional district maps – The State Journal-Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation redrawing the state\u2019s\u00a0congressional district maps<\/a>, saying they reflect Illinois\u2019 diversity and preserve minority representation.
\u201cThese maps align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will ensure all communities are equitably represented in our congressional delegation,\u201d Pritzker said in a statement.
Because of\u00a0the state\u2019s declining population, Illinois will have only 17 congressional seats after the 2022 elections, one fewer than it currently has.
Because most of the state\u2019s population loss occurred in southern Illinois, the new maps combine what are currently the 12th\u00a0and 15th\u00a0districts, held by Republican Reps. Mike Bost<\/a> and Mary Miller<\/a>, respectively, into a new 12th\u00a0District that covers most of the southern one-third of the state.
Miller, however, has indicated she might run in the newly-drawn 15th\u00a0District, which stretches from west-central Illinois eastward across the state, curling around the city of Champaign and stretching back west and south to an area just west of Collinsville.
More:<\/strong>Federal court panel to hear lawsuit over Illinois redistricting maps in early December<\/a>
It also creates a new 13th\u00a0District stretching from the Metro East region across a narrow strip of land through Springfield and Decatur, to Champaign.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, the maps create a new largely-Latino 3rd\u00a0District that currently has no incumbent while also putting Democratic Rep. Marie Newman\u2019s residence in the same district as fellow-Democratic Rep. Jes\u00fas \u201cChuy\u201d Garcia.
Newman, however, has indicated she intends to run in the new 6th\u00a0District where she would face Democratic Rep. Sean Casten in a primary.
Elsewhere, the new maps link Rockford, the Quad Cities, Galesburg, Macomb and Bloomington into one large C-shaped district.
Analysts at the\u00a0Princeton Gerrymandering Project<\/a>\u00a0gave the new maps an overall grade of F in the categories of partisan fairness, competitiveness and compactness. They estimate the maps create 14 likely Democratic districts and three likely Republican districts.
More:<\/strong>Gov. Pritzker signs electric vehicle manufacturing incentives into law<\/a>
The Illinois delegation is currently split between 13 Democrats and five Republicans.
The political reform advocacy group CHANGE Illinois, which has advocated for an independent redistricting commission, also harshly criticized the new maps, saying it was designed to produce \u201cpredetermined winners and losers in nearly all 17 districts.\u201d
\u201cThe map is undemocratic and leaves all voters without choices, undermining the very elections that are supposed to allow voters to hold officials accountable,\u201d the organization said in a statement.
Pritzker, however, said the maps align with the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a recognized language minority.
He said they also align with the Illinois Voting Rights Act, which requires redistricting plans to preserve clusters of minority voting groups that are large enough and cohesive enough to exert collective electoral power.
Pritzker\u2019s signing of the congressional maps comes less than two weeks before a three-judge federal court panel will hear oral arguments in three separate lawsuits challenging the new legislative maps that Democrats pushed through in August and Pritzker signed into law in September.
More:<\/strong>Dr. Jerry Kruse: The COVID-19 vaccine is a safe, early gift for children<\/a>
Plaintiffs in those suits include Republican leaders in the General Assembly; a group of Latino voters in the Chicago area represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund<\/a>, or MALDEF; and a group of civil rights organizations that include the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACP<\/a>, the Illinois State Conference of the NAACP and the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations, or UCCRO.
Those plaintiffs allege the new legislative maps reduce minority representation by breaking up Latino communities in the Chicago area and Black communities in the Metro East region.
Arguments in those cases are scheduled to begin Tuesday, Dec. 7.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday signed legislation redrawing the state\u2019s\u00a0congressional district maps, saying they reflect Illinois\u2019 diversity and preserve minority representation.\u201cThese maps align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will ensure all communities are equitably represented in our congressional delegation,\u201d Pritzker said in a statement.Because of\u00a0the state\u2019s declining population, Illinois will have only 17 congressional seats after the 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t