Watch for the Democratic-drawn Illinois congressional map — the one that screws Republicans passed by the Illinois Senate Tuesday — to be challenged in federal court by the GOP or a front group representing their interests.
The potential basis for a legal challenge: A second Hispanic district should have been created and not doing so violated civil rights provisions in the Voting Rights Act.
How does this help the Illinois GOP members of Congress, since a second Hispanic district would likely elect a Democrat? It would force the redrawing of district lines — and a court ordered map, the reasoning goes, could not be worse than the partisan, gerrymandered plus Democratic map.
The Republicans will be hard-pressed to find any major Latino groups to support them. Pretty much everybody who is anybody in the Latino community agreed not to push for another Latino district. Here’s why…
Josina Morita, executive coordinator of the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations, said it’s not possible to draw two districts where Latinos make up about 65 percent of the population.
“The Latino population is so dispersed,” Morita said. But she said they had hoped for a second district with a much higher Latino population than they got.
Cullerton was also asked whether the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was behind a last-minute change made Monday that placed Johnson in the 13th Congressional District instead of the 15th and U.S. Rep. John Shimkus in the 15th instead of the 13th.
“As far as any individual district, I don’t think I want to address it. I’m sure people will be wanting to file lawsuits and take my words – I’ll tell you this, the D-triple C is very happy with the fact that it’s a very fair map,” Cullerton said.
Yes, they are, but not for its “fairness.”
* More proof that just because this process was more fair and open than it’s ever been, doesn’t mean it actually was fair and open…
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said the map is fair. The public had more than a day to look at it, he said, compared to a map drawn 10 years ago by 19 of the state’s 20 incumbent congressmen, which Cullerton said was released and voted on in an hour.
An extremely low bar was set a decade ago.
* Related…
* New map drawn by Democrats hurts Dold: Democratic map makers are apparently betting that Schakowsky can afford to absorb some Republican areas, as she won her seventh term with 66 percent of the vote. The new map is designed to erase the Republican gains in the last election and adjust for Illinois’ loss of one seat following the 2010 census.
* Congressional map sent to Quinn amid GOP protests
