*** UPDATE *** Congressman John Shimkus testified at today’s hearing…

Shimkus testified that U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, a 23-year Democratic congressman from a neighboring southern Illinois district, came to him in early spring of this year to attempt to negotiate a bipartisan congressional map. The two later met one-on-one in Shimkus’ hometown of Collinsville, where Costello, of nearby Belleville, presented rough maps to the Republican.

Shimkus said subsequent attempts to get more detailed information about the boundary lines failed and no further negotiations ensued. “You can’t negotiate when you don’t know the lines,” Shimkus said.

Asked about his relationship with Costello, who had been the state’s longest-serving congressman, Shimkus choked up with emotion and said, “He’s retiring. He’s a close friend and confidante. I’m proud to call him my friend.” Costello announced last month he would be stepping down from Congress.

Asked about the map’s effects on his political career, Shimkus testified that the new Democrat map was “egregious” and “terrible” and would split his hometown of 22,000 people into three congressional districts after he and Costello had represented Collinsville jointly for the past 20 years.

[ *** End Of Update *** ]

* The hearing starts today…

Illinois Republicans will get their day in court over the state’s new Democrat-drawn congressional remap.

A Thursday hearing is scheduled on the long-shot legal challenge filed by GOP members of Congress over the map that tries to erase some of their recent gains.

Illinois Democrats dominated the map-making because they control the General Assembly and the governor’s office. The new map drew Republicans out of their districts and lumped incumbent GOP members together or threw them into Democrat-friendly territory.

* The Republicans’ argument is summed up here in their motion for a permanent injunction…

Plaintiffs have alleged that the 2011 Map (the “Adopted Plan”) violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act in three ways: it unconstitutionally creates a racially gerrymandered district; it intentionally dilutes the votes of Latinos; and it unconstitutionally discriminates against Republican voters. […]

While it may be true that Latino Democrats in the Illinois state legislature voted in favor of the Adopted Plan and Latino community groups have remained on the sidelines in this case, the Adopted Plan unlawfully discriminates against Latinos. The record overwhelmingly establishes that the Adopted Plan violates the Equal Protection Clause because race was the predominant factor motivating the shape of Adopted District 4 and the gerrymandered district is not narrowly tailored to comply with any compelling interest.

The record also makes clear that the Adopted Plan intentionally and unlawfully dilutes the votes of Latinos by packing Latinos into District 4, while it reduces the Latino population in neighboring Districts 3 and 5 to arrest the growing Latino community’s influence over contests in those districts.

And while political considerations often properly inform the redistricting process, the Adopted Plan takes partisan gerrymandering to an unconstitutional extreme. The Democratic-controlled Illinois government worked hand-in-hand with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to draw a map that discriminates against and penalizes Republican voters based on their political affiliations and expression of political views. Under any reliable standardfor measuring the constitutionality of political gerrymanders, including the one that Plaintiffs have proposed in their Amended Complaint, the Adopted Plan violates the Constitution.

* The Republicans claim that Democrats created “an excessive supermajority of Latinos” in the newly created District 4 (65.9 percent Latino voting age population) while they “substantially reduced the Latino VAP in neighboring Districts 3 and 5 from where it currently stands.” Here are the districts in question…

The Republican argument is that if the Democrats had spread out the Latino vote and not “packed” so many into the 4th, the Dems could’ve created another Latino district.

* Greg Hinz…

Just about no one in politics that I know believes [the political gerrymandering] challenge will get anywhere. Gerrymandering, like it or not, is a fact of life.

But the Hispanic argument has more heft because the Democrats carved out three majority African-American districts, even though the 2010 census found that Illinois actually has more Latinos.

The Dems counter that the Latino population is much more dispersed and that creating two Latino districts would dilute them so much that incumbent Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago, would be endangered. Republicans dispute that, but the map they’re offering would create districts that are only 53% and 48% Latino of the “voting age” population.

Democrats are concerned that while the panel has one Democratic-appointed judge, it also includes two who were chosen for the bench by former President Ronald Reagan. Both have been brought in to hear the case from Indiana.

Congressman Gutierrez was the primary motivating factor for creating just one new district. Some believe he wants to be the only and only king of Latino politics here, some say he’s right that Latinos are too spread out to “safely” create a new district that guarantees two Latinos will be elected. A 53 percent Latino district could conceivably put Gutierrez in some political danger.

But Gutierrez was also able to prevent any major Latino organizations from supporting the Republican lawsuit, which has surely hurt the Republican case.

Then again, a two-to-one Indiana Republican majority on the judicial panel is giving the Democrats heartburn.

Discuss.