Prairie State Wire

According to an Illinois Policy report on the redistricting process of Illinois, the Illinois House has already scheduled 23 redistricting hearings in April. In those hearings Illinois residents will have the chance to speak their minds on legislative redistricting of the state.

"While lawmakers on the wrong side of gerrymandering might be map casualties, it is Illinois’ voters who ultimately lose," Illinois Policy said in a post. 

An issue facing lawmakers is that Census Bureau data has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Illinois Policy the earliest that the U.S. Census Bureau could give the redistricting data is in September, but the deadline for the remapping is the end of June. If the maps aren't drawn by the deadline, the job goes to a bipartisan panel.

A likely outcome is that Democrats will advance the redistricting process before June 30 so that they can keep control of drawing the state legislative and U.S. congressional maps of Illinois.

Republicans and activist groups have complained about the lack of bipartisan cooperation.

But Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says that there’s no reason to stop discussing the remapping process. He said that despite the odds of the Democrats using any leverage they have to gain the upper hand in the remapping process, the hearings are still important.

Raoul said that there have been instances before when Illinois residents shared their thoughts on the remapping process and their ideas were not just heard but also implemented in the redistricting process.

Raoul said, “As much as people want to criticize the overall process, we heard back from people who said they came to the hearings, expressed their concerns and the resulting map reflected things that they had shared.”

Public hearing dates for maps are below:

April 1: Chicago in the Bilandic Building in the Loop.

April 2: Villa Park, Peoria and Cook County west

April 3: Rock Island, Berwyn/Cicero and Chicago south

April 5: Elgin, Joliet and Rockford

April 7: Decatur, Lake County and Cook County northwest

April 8: Champaign, Cook County south and Chicago west

April 9: McHenry, Aurora and Illinois River Valley (LaSalle County)

April 11: Cook County north and Metro East

April 12: Springfield at the state Capitol

April 17: Carbondale