Peoria Standard

Tri-County Urban League President Laraine Bryson is determined not to see her community miss out on anything it may be entitled to based on faulty representation.

“The importance of the census is as people are counted and that population is counted then that brings more resources to the community,” Bryson told lawmakers during a recent House Redistricting Committee hearing on the subject of map redrawing.  “I think one of the challenges is getting people to not fear retribution for participating and that's why we reached out through information. I'm just trying to get people on board and to participate in that process.”

As the debate over how best to make the once-in-a-decade task of map redistricting a fair process shows little sign of dissipating, Republican lawmakers are doing all they can to have a bigger voice for themselves in the process.

The task of redrawing district maps is typically left to the party in charge. But since complete data from the Census Bureau used to create the maps won't be available by the June 30 deadline, Republicans see a window of opportunity in the delay. 

Republican lawmakers have introduced the People’s Independent Maps Act, which they tout as a way of assuring a fairer process going forward. The measure would give the state Supreme Court the power to appoint 16 independent citizens to a redistricting commission within 30 days of passage. The members would be equally split politically.

Bryson is keeping a close watch over it all with Peoria’s welfare in mind.

“I think that for Peoria we stayed about steady in terms of the response rate but I think that because of some things that are going on nationally, (especially) misinformation, a lot of people were afraid to respond,” she said. “(The census data) is very important in terms of bringing resources back to our community.”