Prairie State Wire

Illinois GOP Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy wants voters to understand he stands with them.

“I am proud to join Republican leaders in Illinois who are fighting to put the power back in the hands of the people,” Tracy said in a weekly memo outlining how and why the party has decided to join a lawsuit challenging the way legislative maps were drawn and signed into law by the governor.

As a candidate, Pritzker vowed to veto any maps drawn along partisan lines.

“The ILGOP joined the lawsuit because the people of Illinois need all the help they can get in restricting the ability of a billionaire bully like JB Pritzker to suppress and subvert the right to vote in free and fair elections,” Tracy said. “Voters should pick their politicians, instead of politicians picking their voters. From the Speaker of the House to the Governor, Democrats fundamentally betrayed the people of Illinois when they ran for office supporting an independent map-making commission and then broke their word by ramming through partisan redistricting.”

Republicans are pointing to Pritzker as being among those most guilty.

“The Illinois Republican Party is standing up for our democracy as Democrats openly and proudly disenfranchise voters,” Tracy said.

State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) recently took the Senate floor to remind the governor of the veto pledge he made.

"Gov. Pritzker, in 2018, you rode into office on a message of reform," Barickman said. "Many voters around the state cast a vote for you because they believed that our state was plagued with a history of dysfunction. You told them how you would be different; you told them how you were not a part of the machine politics that have plagued the state of Illinois for too many generations."

Barickman further reminded Pritzker of his promise to the voters to veto partisan-drawn legislative maps.

“You said ‘I promise you the voters’ that you would veto this legislation drawn by politicians protecting the partisans protecting the status quo,” Barickman said. “You governor, you promised the voters that you would take your pen and you would veto this piece of legislation.”

The drawing of new legislative districts happens once every ten years as stated by the constitution to meet changing district population based on the most recent census data.