Former Illinois state Rep. Jeanne Ives filed a federal lawsuit May 8 seeking to overturn Illinois’ current legislative map, alleging Democratic lawmakers used unconstitutional race-based line drawing during redistricting.
Ives, a former 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary candidate, hosts The Real Story on AM 560 and serves as CEO of Breakthrough Ideas, a policy advocacy and education organization focused on state issues.
The lawsuit seeks to force the state’s legislative districts to be redrawn by declaring that the Illinois Voting Rights Act has created a redistricting regime that “violates the United States Constitution explicitly by elevating race as a primary purpose in legislative line drawing.”
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois against Gov. JB Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Elections and its executive director Bernadette Matthews, the complaint argues the state’s redistricting framework treats voters as racial categories rather than equal citizens.
The lawsuit seeks to declare the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 unconstitutional and block its enforcement through an injunction.
Ives is represented by attorneys Kaylan Phillips, J. Christian Adams and Joseph Nixon of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
The case follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling issued April 29 in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and reinforced limits on the use of race in redistricting.
Relying on that precedent, Ives argues Illinois law similarly requires explicit consideration of race in map drawing, a practice the lawsuit says cannot withstand modern constitutional scrutiny.
The complaint further contends that Illinois’ 2021 redistricting framework is constitutionally suspect in light of Callais, asserting that any legislative scheme that “requires explicit consideration of race” in drawing legislative districts violates equal protection and Fifteenth Amendment standards.
It quotes the Supreme Court’s principle as elucidated in Callais that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.”
The complaint levies sweeping constitutional allegations against Governor JB Pritzker and the other defendants.
“Illinois has districting criteria that violates the United States Constitution explicitly by elevating race as a primary purpose in legislative line drawing,” the lawsuit reads. “The Supreme Court of the United States has prohibited the use of race in legislative line drawing absent a remedial purpose to specific discrimination.”
The filing repeatedly argues that the Illinois Voting Rights Act compels unconstitutional racial considerations in map-drawing noting the law “mandates the creation of racial districts in violation of Plaintiff’s civil rights protected by the Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Section 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
According to the complaint, the Illinois Voting Rights Act requires mapmakers to prioritize race in several forms of district construction.
“The Illinois Voting Rights Act requires drawing district lines to preserve deliberate racial percentages, racial majorities, and the deliberate preservation of racial influence districts,” the lawsuit reads. “This violates the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.”
The lawsuit also emphasizes the alleged constitutional injury to Ives as a voter placed in districts shaped by race-based considerations noting she “is injured by the Illinois Voting Rights Act’s requirement of drawing district boundaries with racial goals and with racial purposes.” “Plaintiff will continue to suffer this injury while the Illinois Voting Rights Act continues to be in force,” the lawsuit reads.
A major portion of the complaint targets Illinois law requiring the creation of “crossover,” “coalition” and “influence” districts.
Under the law, “crossover” districts are designed so minority voters can elect their preferred candidates with support from white voters, “coalition” districts combine multiple minority groups into a single voting bloc and “influence” districts are drawn to give minority voters sway over election outcomes even when they cannot form a majority.
The lawsuit argues these are explicitly race-based forms of redistricting. The complaint argues that these provisions “make racial considerations a core purpose of all legislative line drawing in Illinois.”
It further asserts that the state’s 2021 redistricting process incorporated these criteria explicitly.
The lawsuit also cites public statements from Pritzker as evidence of intent, quoting his remarks upon signing the 2021 maps legislation.
“These legislative maps align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will help ensure Illinois’ diversity is reflected in the halls of government,” the lawsuit quotes Pritzker saying at the time he signed the current maps into law.
A press release announcing Pritzker’s signing of the legislation also noted that “the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 ensures redistricting plans are crafted in a way that preserves clusters of minority voters if they are of size or cohesion to exert collective electoral power.”
Legally, the complaint argues that such considerations violate the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that voting rights cannot be abridged on account of race.
“The Fifteenth Amendment states: ‘[t]he right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,’” the lawsuit notes, quoting the U.S. Constitution.
The filing contends that even laws that seemingly appear to be non-discriminatory violate constitutional protections if enacted with racial intent.
“Even facially neutral election procedures violate the Fifteenth Amendment if they are adopted with a racially discriminatory purpose,” the lawsuit reads. In its legal claims, the complaint seeks a sweeping remedy, asking the court to declare the Illinois Voting Rights Act unconstitutional and block its enforcement. The lawsuit also seeks attorneys’ fees and costs under federal civil rights statutes.
Due to gerrymandered legislative districts Democrats have largely held supermajorities in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly since 2013, maintaining control of the State Senate throughout that period and holding a supermajority in the House for most years since the 2012 election, with a brief interruption from 2017 to 2019.
If successful, the lawsuit could affect the composition of several of the gerrymandered minority-majority and plurality districts.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Illinois is 75.5% white, 19.4% Hispanic and 14.5% black.
The state currently has two Hispanic majority Congressional Districts, the 3rd 4th Congressional Districts.
The 3rd Congressional District, which is known as one of the most gerrymandered Congressional Districts in the country, is a Hispanic plurality district, which, since its remapping in 2021, has regularly elected a Hispanic member of Congress.
During the 2021 remap, the Latino Policy Forum called for Hispanic majorities in 30 state House districts and 15 state Senate districts.
Three congressional districts were drawn as black plurality districts, including the 1st Congressional District, which has been represented by an black member of Congress since 1929, the 2nd Congressional District and the 7th Congressional District.
The state House currently includes eight Black-majority districts, while the state Senate includes six Black-majority districts.
