* I told subscribers weeks ago that the good government groups’ only real job this spring was to find three House Democrats willing to stand up and say they would not vote for any remap plan devised by legislators. Preventing a veto-proof majority in just one chamber would’ve put enormous pressure on Gov. JB Pritzker to keep his promise to veto an unfair map. And that, in turn, would’ve put pressure on the majority party to rethink its entire strategy.

If 19 House Democrats stood up to stop the most powerful Democrat in Illinois history from being reelected, could 3 be found, cajoled or pressured to do the same on the remap?

Nope. Didn’t happen.

The Democrats stuck together and good government groups either didn’t bother to up the ante on them or simply sided with Republicans. And now it’s all devolved into a last-minute partisan process argument…

Republican lawmakers and non-partisan good government advocates continue to bash the first draft of Illinois’ Democrat-controlled map for the next decade. Legislators held a joint committee hearing with the redistricting groups Tuesday afternoon.

While Democratic leaders released the map late Friday night, lawmakers and the public still want to see each district’s geographical boundaries and demographics. They also want to know the information Democrats used to craft the map besides data from the 2019 American Community Survey.

Tuesday night, Republicans pushed Democrats to explain when they’ll file the legislation for the new map. With six days left before adjournment, the legislation and bill sponsor is still unknown. Also, only one Democrat participated in person with Republicans during Tuesday’s hearing. The other Democratic members appeared virtually.

Nearly every advocacy group testifying before the committee asked lawmakers to wait on the mapping process until after the census data is ready in mid-August.

“There’s still time. We could back away from this ledge and hit the pause button,” said Jay Young, Executive Director of Common Cause Illinois. “We can still appeal to the courts. I urge you in the most strenuous way, please take this opportunity.”

It’s just too late for that argument because the courts are not known for acting in a prompt manner. But since the Democrats refused to ask the Illinois Supreme Court to intervene on our constitutional deadline the way the California Democrats did with their Supreme Court, why didn’t anyone else?

* Instead, the goo-goos fundraised off of a claim that Black and Brown people were being disenfranchised…

Illinois politicians introduced the set of maps that they have been working on behind closed doors for weeks. These maps use 5-year sampling data that we know undercounts Illinoisans by 41,877 people.

We know this undercount likely has a great effect on people of color. It’s beyond alarming and disappointing. For too long, Black communities have historically been underrepresented, under-resourced, and targeted by large-scale misinformation campaigns designed to further disenfranchise them.

These maps are just another example of this disenfranchisement.

The decisions by our current lawmakers will disenfranchise tens of thousands of voices for a decade by creating representative maps that do not include them. How is this equity for Illinois?

* Except, Illinois has one of the best track records in the nation of drawing legislative districts for people of color. Fox 32…

After meeting for months behind sealed doors, Democrats now hope to lock in their Springfield super-majorities for another ten years. They are declining to answer questions because they fear anything they say publicly will be used against them when Republicans inevitably challenge the new district boundaries in court.

In previous years, some judges overturned new district maps based on issues related to minority representation. On that count, the Democrats’ remap expert called Illinois a model for the nation, not least because Illinois is one of the few places in the country where large groups of white voters regularly support minority candidates.

“A little under a third of the members of the state House and the state Senate are African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic,” said Prof. Allan Lichtman of American University. “That’s right in line with the citizen minority voting age population in the state.” […]

Democrats are now rushing to approve a redistricting plan because of a deadline imposed by the Illinois Constitution. Unless the job is done by the end of next month, random chance will decide which party gets to finish the process. That means Republicans would have a 50-50 chance.

There’s another step before that 50-50 drawing, but, yeah. Anyway, this is what it has come down to because three brave HDem souls could not be found or cultivated or pounded into submission.

* Capitol News Illinois…

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., who was hired as a consultant by the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, testified that in his opinion, ACS data is acceptable to use for redistricting because in the five years leading up to the 2010 census, those estimates for Illinois were off by only about 0.3 percent.

“Nationally, there is no requirement under law or the constitution in Illinois that only decennial U.S. census data can be used for redistricting,” he said. “In fact, the majority of states, I repeat that, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, do not explicitly require that you must use only decennial census data for internal redistricting purposes, particularly of course when such data is not available or delayed.” […]

Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez, D-Cicero, who chairs the House Redistricting Committee, said the maps before the committee were only a draft, but McConchie said the committee still needed to see the demographic numbers.

“How can we appropriately measure the draft without the numbers,” he asked.

Well, I dunno, Leader. As subscribers know, I hired a consultant to put together the demographic numbers for each and every district. Y’all have a large state budget for this sort of thing. Maybe reach out to me and I’ll give you his number?