Peoria Standard

State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria) is blasting the new congressional maps drawn by Democrats as a complete disservice to the voters of the state.

“We had an opportunity to do this process differently,” Spain said on the House floor during recent debate on the issue. “To work in a bipartisan manner to come together to create the kind of government that the people of Illinois deserve. The people will get the type of government, however, that we have designed for them — a government that is based in gridlock, acrimony, non-cooperation and nonsuccess.”

While Gov. J.B. Pritzker is touting the new maps he signed off on as an accurate representation of the state’s diversity and an example of a system that preserves minority representation. Spain argues the state's status tells voters everything they need to know about its direction.

“We are one of only three states in the nation that lost population over the last three years,” he said. “That is an indictment on all of us, on the way things have been done in the state of Illinois and the type of leadership and design that we had created in our government and now through this action tonight the people that we send to Congress.”

Due to its declining population, Illinois is set to lose a congressional seat in 2022, dropping its  number to 17.

“We have talked through the redistricting process, about what is important, about diversity, about the competition of ideas, about having districts that makes some logical sense based on an alignment of geography and communities of interest,” Spain said. “But we know the truth. The only communities of interest in the drawing of this map are communities of Democrats. Communities of interest are not only communities of Democrats, and the drawing of this congressional map enshrines the very most awful and deadly part of our politics today – that we are dividing people up.”

Spain isn’t the only one rendering a harsh assessment.

Princeton Gerrymandering Project analysts gave the new maps an overall grade of F in the areas of partisan fairness, competitiveness and compactness. Researchers further estimate that the maps will pave the way for 14 likely Democratic districts and just three likely Republican districts.

The political reform advocacy group CHANGE Illinois has also blasted the maps, charging the job was done with the goal of producing “predetermined winners and losers in nearly all 17 districts.”

Soon after the governor signed off on the legislation, three separate lawsuits were filed where plaintiffs allege the maps will reduce minority representation by breaking up Latino communities in the Chicago area and Black communities in the Metro East region.

With a three-judge federal panel set to hear opening arguments on Dec. 7, plaintiffs include Republican leaders in the General Assembly; a group of Latino voters in the Chicago area represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and a group of civil rights organizations that include the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACP.

“We are creating outcomes where only the most extreme people that run for political office have any chance to prevail,” Spain said. “It is an epidemic that is destroying our democracy. I am so embarrassed and so ashamed of this entire charade.”