Illinois Redistricting Megathread

[lfromnj]

Bustos retiring should make this interesting!

Indeed. I'd like to play with putting Rockford in IL-14 and creating a new Dem district along I-74 from the Quad Cities south.

Once you are past Peoria and Bloomington, what makes more sense? East to Champaign or south to Springfield?

Champaign probably makes more sense for a Peoria-Bloomington-Davenport seat b/c it lets you run your East St. Louis district up to Springfield.

An East St.Louis seat needs to either start from Carbondale to Decatur or East.StLouis to Champaign for it to be winnable by Ds.

[lfromnj]

Dems should go for the jugular. 15-2, all Dem districts are at least +4 except the downstate one, which is +3. Compactness isn't terrible either except for the central IL district. No attention paid to where any of the incumbents reside.

The downstate district is probably Likely R anyway  as you used composite, and then that Rockford to Peoria is probably barely better than a tossup.  And I wouldn't be sure of other districts either. If you really want a rock solid map that maximizes seats, you draw the VRA seats into white rurals such as Iroquois so Underwood won't need to take Rockford. Then draw the 12 Chicago land seats with preferably all seats except maybe Underwood's being Clinton +12 or more. Then draw a Rockford to  Rock Island to Bloomington. After that draw a Champaign to East St.Louis for a 14-3  Overall though I think certain incumbent demands might push Underwood by the end to take Rockford which means a 13-1-3 could also happen.

[lfromnj]

The GOP won the state-legislative coinflip after 1990 and, dutifully, drew a map favorable to the GOP. The Democrats appealed the the Supreme Court who ordered a number of districts redrawn. Some of those districts were struck down as "non-compact."  A significant number of the state's current legislative seats are less compact that the ones struck down in the 90's. If the GOP gains control of the IL Supreme Court they need only follow precedent to strike them down.

Thankfully the Democrats could redraw the State Supreme Court districts before the 2022 election.

Issue though is counties can't be split and Cook is the first 3 districts as mandated by the state constitution which would require an amendment to change. You can still draw 2 Collar county districts but at the judicial level the collars are still relatively speaking swingy. It would improve their chances still but I wouldn't call it a slamdunk.  There is a decent excuse to redistrict as the districts have pretty varying population for the non Cook districts.

[lfromnj]

STATE HOUSE MAP!!!

They really hate college students lol, they connected Bloomington to Peoria instead of just giving it its own house seat.

edit: I forgot its because of senate nesting.

[lfromnj]

Senate Map!

First major thing I noticed was how they combined Peoria and McClean to keep the Peoria district D. Currently its only Clinton +2.

They also made Neil Anderson's district more D from Clinton +3 to Clinton +7. Previously it didn't need to be gerrymandered because Rock Island was 60% obama.

[lfromnj]

Interesting Manar's district gets made way more blue to Trump +2 but he himself gets drawn out from his home in Macoupin county. Is he running for Congress?

[lfromnj]

The GOP won the state-legislative coinflip after 1990 and, dutifully, drew a map favorable to the GOP. The Democrats appealed the the Supreme Court who ordered a number of districts redrawn. Some of those districts were struck down as "non-compact."  A significant number of the state's current legislative seats are less compact that the ones struck down in the 90's. If the GOP gains control of the IL Supreme Court they need only follow precedent to strike them down.

Thankfully the Democrats could redraw the State Supreme Court districts before the 2022 election.

Issue though is counties can't be split and Cook is the first 3 districts as mandated by the state constitution which would require an amendment to change. You can still draw 2 Collar county districts but at the judicial level the collars are still relatively speaking swingy. It would improve their chances still but I wouldn't call it a slamdunk.  There is a decent excuse to redistrict as the districts have pretty varying population for the non Cook districts.

You can easily draw a district that doesn’t include Cook county that went for Biden by nearly 20 points.   That’s probably too Dem for Republican to win even in a good year.

I guess maybe they could be bold and just abuse deviation as it isn't required for Supreme court districts, and just create a 2nd district based in Lake County only. Outside of that a Lake district has to include McHenry. The GOP still won the majority of  Judicial races in Dupage in 2020. Again going to judicial races is serious downballot strength . I would say they would still have the advantage but its not Likely D . Probably Lean D IMO .

[lfromnj]

The GOP won the state-legislative coinflip after 1990 and, dutifully, drew a map favorable to the GOP. The Democrats appealed the the Supreme Court who ordered a number of districts redrawn. Some of those districts were struck down as "non-compact."  A significant number of the state's current legislative seats are less compact that the ones struck down in the 90's. If the GOP gains control of the IL Supreme Court they need only follow precedent to strike them down.

Thankfully the Democrats could redraw the State Supreme Court districts before the 2022 election.

Issue though is counties can't be split and Cook is the first 3 districts as mandated by the state constitution which would require an amendment to change. You can still draw 2 Collar county districts but at the judicial level the collars are still relatively speaking swingy. It would improve their chances still but I wouldn't call it a slamdunk.  There is a decent excuse to redistrict as the districts have pretty varying population for the non Cook districts.

To be fair, even with a "counties can't be split" requirement gerrymandering the IL Supreme Court is very easy. Here is how a hypothetical gerrymander would look like (the 4 downstate districts have populations of 2.1, 1.9, 2.0 and 1.5 million; which is way closer than they are now but I'll admit, not perfectly equal).



District 1 is the Cook district and obviously you can't change that and it's safe D.
District 2 is meant to be the district that puts Dems over the top (Clinton+11, albeit only D+2)
District 3 is meant to give Dems another possibility of attack and a 5th seat (Clinton+6, D+1)
District 4 is a Republican sink
District 5 is Likely R, but maybe could flip in a wave (Trump+8, R+5)

Alternatively if Dems want to have a "clean" map so they can't be accused of gerrymandering that is also easy to do and has a similar effect (other than the District 5 equivalent which becomes Safe R)

The issue is that at that level of going downballot the races more resemble 2018 illinois gov than 2016 president. Dems are still favored but not even close to certain especially in what may be a good year for the gop.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/BrianAmos/status/1396634308618637314
See guys
The map is fair

The user here used the 2012>2018 composite on DRA which includes the 2012 presidential and 2016 senate. Generally speaking using just Clinton 2016 or Biden 2020 would increase the gap in favor of D's . Obviously that doesn't really matter using non-partisan criteria but just felt like mentioning.

A fair map would probably have a large R gap with composite numbers but a smaller one with either 2016 or 2020 presidential.

[lfromnj]

Now if IL D's really wanted to go all out on the state Supreme Court



Covers all their bases.

[lfromnj]

https://mobile.twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1397276455508135936

Considering judicial races are closer to 2018 gov still, this doesn't really lock down the court for Ds. Definitely a major help but not an instant win.  The only way to really lock it down is to do my map above.

[lfromnj]

Also if anyone is wondering why District 3 is a bit weird its because they wanted to keep circuit courts together.

[lfromnj]

https://mobile.twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1397276455508135936

Considering judicial races are closer to 2018 gov still, this doesn't really lock down the court for Ds. Definitely a major help but not an instant win.  The only way to really lock it down is to do my map above.

It depends on how well Biden #'s predict the future.  If the Biden coalition transfers downballot, this will easily be a 5D/2R court after the next open elections in districts 2 and 3, and both the outer Chicago districts will only get safer with time.  However, Pritzker just barely won both of those seats in 2018 and they were shakier for Clinton in 2016. 

BTW this isn't particularly egregious from a gerrymandering perspective.  The previous districts were drawn in the 1960's and are now grossly malapportioned (SCOTUS never extended Reynolds and Wesberry to judicial districts) and the median seat on this new map still voted well right of the state. The latter is basically inevitable for now as the state constitution prohibits county splits, hence the 3 seat Cook district.   

This isn't a gerrymander at all. IMO its close to what Texas Rs are pushing for equal polling places per registered voter. Partisan intent perhaps but its merely just "fixing" an advantage the other party had.

[lfromnj]

And Cook County aside, what is the rational for not moving some counties from the most over populated district, district 4, to the most underpopulated outside Cook, and in fact in the entire state by far, district 2, other than that they are all Pub?

Putting Winnebago and the other county would make 2 more overpopulated than the rest so that doesn't matter. If you put the rurals in the NW of the state then you block off Winnebago.  Also splitting Cook is literally not allowed .

[lfromnj]

Keep in mind that there is no deadline in IL for the congressional redistricting other than what is needed to meet federal law. Talk about alternative data sets are most important for legislative redistricting which has a Jun 30 deadline before a bipartisan back-up commission is formed to draw the maps. Congressional maps can be drawn and passed in late Aug using real 2020 Census data in the "legacy" format, and it won't affect the primary date or Dem control over the process.

I thought that the Illinois Supreme Court had construed the state constitution to require strict equality among legislative districts.

What data did they use? The legislative redistricting sites showed maps but no data?

The house districts in Chicago are horrible. Can an equal protection case be made for extending districts out for 40 miles in order to pick up population but retain effective control in Chicago?

This is a trick that several states like Illinois, Oklahoma, and maybe Colorado next are using to compromise their legal deadlines with the lack of official data. They are using other census data, like the ACS. Then when final data comes out they expect the maps to go to the courts. The maps will be struck down and the legislature will have first dibs to make the marginal changes to restore equity. So theses maps are something very close to their final plan.


I can't comment on the tentacles, but I'm sure someone out there would argue in their favor. Such lines, while unwieldy, do avoid racially packing Chicago minority groups into their voluntarily segregated city, and therefore increases community representation.

Colorado is merely just using estimated to get an estimated ideas for their map and then will collect early public feedback. They have no desire to use ACS for the actual map.

[lfromnj]

Wtf is Purple though?

Is it just an attempt to give atleast one of Kinzinger/Davis a seat who are more moderate than Bost or Lahood?

[lfromnj]

This is easily the ugliest map of the redistricting cycle so far.

I love it! Pass it immediately.

Nah Texas is more ugly lol.

Definitely 2nd ugliest unless MD Ds do whatever.

[lfromnj]

Seems like this is mostly least change, outside of Newman and the southern IL seat? Obviously horrific though.

Yeah maybe they reorient the GOP sinks if certain people announce their retirement(No point hurting your states seniority unless you really hate the guys like maybe Miller but she has the most red seat.

[lfromnj]

Yeah, the more you look that this map the more dummymander potential it has.

Hopefully this isn’t the final map. All the Democratic seats should be at least Biden by double digits. It’s not that hard to draw. Missed opportunities to make IL-03, IL-17, and IL-14 bluer

Newman's is only +6 and swung R
Bustos is +8

[lfromnj]

I like the spirit but not the actual map. At least it is not as terrible as VA or CO (and soon CA)

Chill about CA, if you saw the LULAC and CLLARO stuff from CO you know whats going to happen. CO only failed because the Republicans were actual Republicans and one of the Indies was probably an actual Indy (Lori Schell)

[lfromnj]

Newman got a pretty crappy district. Wonder if they want Lipinski to come back?

I feel that Newman's demand for the mappers was to remove the Hispanic parts of her seat, since those were the areas that backed Lipinski in the primaries. Which they did, but didn't get give her some more white Liberal suburbs from the seats to her north. Maybe she'll demand revisions after seeing the overall topline.

That's not entirely true. If you compare '18 to '20 primaries she clearly made big inroads with Latino and Asian communities in Chicago, and I'm sure she wouldn't have much of a problem winning over those voters in a future primary. She's also keeping several of Lipinski's best areas (like Mount Greenwood which could have creatively been drawn into one of the other Chicago districts). Honestly, I would be pretty disappointed in that district if I was her.

Almost seems like Cawthorn's 11th to Wautaga.

[lfromnj]

I F[INKS]ING LOVE IT.

It puts areas west of Rockford in the same vote sink as areas south of Springfield!

I DON'T WORSHIP A CONCEPT, I FOLLOW J.B.

I mean I think that part is really for primary reasons? I guess IL D's would prefer to have Kinzinger/Davis over other R's. Maybe Pritzker is a bit worried about Davis for some reason so he gave him a seat he would probably win in the primary? Along with that maybe Lahood has some friends in the legislature as his sink stays similar as possible instead of taking the North IL parts

[lfromnj]

This map seems designed to go up in flames when Kamala has her 2024 or 2028 run that collapses Dems even more in the midwest.

Not sure how. Most Chicagoland seats besides Newman's are pretty upscale or minority heavy and super  safe of course. I guess Foster's isn't that upscale either

The new Bustos seat could be cherry picked a bit more, but it lost a lot of the hardest R trending rurals and has McClean + East Rockford+ North Peoria which are all trending D. Not sure why they made it so weak. They added some extra rurals but a bit more cherry picking could get it double digit Biden .

The South IL seat does have Decatur and Metro East which aren't pretty areas but Springfield and Champaign are great for Democrats.

[lfromnj]

I mean they really don't like Newman lol.

[lfromnj]

How much do you want to bet that whatever 5 minute online polemics about gerrymandering are made in the 2020s will look at this map and still use the earmuffs districts as the most egregious example of gerrymandering in the country?

In fairness the earmuffs are no longer needed to do a Latino seat--and haven't been since 2010.

Yup at this point its just that no one else wants that many hispanics.



Not really enough for 2 seats though without going to those satellite cities. or that area bordering East Hammond but that messes up the black seats.