House Republicans ask state Supreme Court to toss out legislative map

[January 29, 2025]  By Ben Szalinski

SPRINGFIELD — Democrats continue to hold a supermajority in the Illinois House thanks to illegally gerrymandered House districts, House Republicans allege in a new lawsuit filed with the Illinois Supreme Court Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges the current House map fails to meet state constitutional requirements that districts be compact and allow elections to be “free and equal.” The outcome is elections that are “rigged” to favor Democratic candidates. Republicans want the court to invalidate the maps and appoint a special master to draw new district boundaries.

Republicans are targeting this lawsuit to state courts after previously failing to block the maps in federal court. New data and a key expert witness, they say, make their state case more likely to succeed.

“Illinois House Republicans refuse to stand by while Democrats rig elections and manipulate the system to maintain their grip on power,” House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The lawsuit comes after House Republicans failed to gain seats in the two election cycles since a new map was drawn in 2021 following the census and implemented for the 2022 election. Republicans lost five seats in 2022 and failed to win any back in 2024, leaving House Democrats with 78 members in the 118-member House.

‘Compactness’ in question

The first question Republicans want the Supreme Court to weigh in on is whether the districts are “compact.”

Compactness is not defined in the state constitution, though dozens of mathematical formulas exist to measure whether the residents in a district are spaced appropriately.

Republicans point to the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate a district in 1981, which found the central Illinois district was not considered compact. Using two mathematical formulas, the lawsuit alleges 52 of the current House districts are less compact based on at least one formula than the unconstitutional 89th House District was in 1981.

The 89th House District in that year included several square-shaped sections from Peoria to Springfield. The court ruled it was not compact based on a visual examination. The lawsuit argues existing districts that feature odd shapes snaking around communities or extending away from the heart of a district would fail the same eye test.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which assesses legislative maps around the country on several metrics, gave the current Illinois House map an “F” grade for its compactness metric.

The districts are also politically gerrymandered to elect more Democrats, according to the lawsuit.

Republicans argue Rep. Lisa Hernandez, D-Cicero, who chaired the House Redistricting Committee, admitted to partisan gerrymandering during floor debate in August 2021 when she was asked by then-Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, whether “partisan advantage” was considered in drawing the map.

“It is one of the factors included,” Hernandez said at the time. The court filing also points to testimony in previous challenges to the maps in which a House Democratic staff member acknowledges lawmakers considered creating political advantages in certain districts as they discussed how to draw the map.

At odds with simulations

As part of their case, House Republicans enlisted the help of national redistricting expert Jowei Chen, from the University of Michigan. Chen has served as an expert witness on similar lawsuits in other states. House Republicans said Chen ran 10,000 computer simulations on different map outcomes at their request, with the only requirement being that the maps were compliant with the federal Voting Rights Act. None of the simulations produced a map similar to the current House map.

“That outcome is only possible with partisan gerrymandering designed to disenfranchise voters,” Rep. Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, said in an interview.

The current 78-40 split between Democrats and Republicans isn’t proportional to ballots cast in recent elections, the GOP argues. The 78-40 split would make sense in a world where Republicans were receiving roughly 40% of votes cast in a general election. But in 2022, Republicans received 51% of votes case in House races, and the party should expect to receive 47-48% of the votes cast in House races in a normal election year, per the simulation.

House Republican Leader Tony McCombie speaks at a news conference on Tuesday about the House GOP’s lawsuit against Illinois’ legislative maps. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Bridgette Fox)

Thus, the GOP believes they’d have a larger share of House seats if maps were drawn fairly.

“We’re not supposed to be depriving voters of their individual vote,” Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva, said in an interview. “It’s supposed to have the same meaning as every other voter in the state, and when you do that on a partisan basis, it always skews that one individual’s vote.”

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, using a different methodology, gave Illinois’ House map an “A” grade for partisan fairness, meaning the current map doesn’t give an advantage to either party.

The filing notes courts in North Carolina and Pennsylvania have previously stuck down maps based on similar accusations and language in those states’ constitutions similar to Illinois’.

Republicans hope the Illinois Supreme Court will agree the maps are unfair and force new House maps to be redrawn by an independent commission that would not consider partisan benefits. The lawsuit focuses on the House maps, but a favorable ruling for Republicans could be extended to Senate maps, as each Senate district is comprised of two House districts.

“I have high hopes for the court in doing the right thing,” Spain said. “I think the compactness claim is a slam dunk. They’ve already ruled on that one before.”

“Leader McCombie can’t justify her party leader’s unlawful attempt to slash services working families need to access healthcare, afford rent, and put food on the table, so she is choosing to distract people by relitigating a matter that courts decided years ago,” said Jon Maxson, a spokesperson for House Speaker Chris Welch, D-Hillside, in an email.

Previous lawsuits

This is not the first time Republicans have asked courts to toss out maps.

Republicans and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, sued in summer 2021 after the General Assembly passed an initial set of maps using American Community Survey data in order to meet statutory deadlines for redistricting after census data was delayed by the pandemic. Lawmakers returned later that summer to pass the current set of maps based on census data.

Republicans and MALDEF sued again to try to stop the maps, arguing the latest version reduced the number of Latino-majority districts in the Chicago area. A separate case was filed by the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACP and other civil rights groups that argued the maps broke up the Metro East’s Black voting population. A three-judge panel of federal judges rejected those challenges in December 2021, leaving the current maps in place.

Republican lawmakers said their reason for challenging the map wasn’t based on whether it would lead to more Republicans winning legislative seats in future elections. Ugaste said he believes an independently drawn map could make his reelection more difficult in his west suburban district.

“I’m willing to do it because that is what is right for the voters. It’s not about me hanging on to my seat,” Ugaste said.

The plaintiffs also argue it’s not too late to challenge the maps, as there are three more elections before the General Assembly is required to redraw the maps after the 2030 Census. Fourteen other states also have pending cases challenging legislative maps.

“Other states continue to work on this; we shouldn’t forfeit our ability to do so in Illinois,” Spain said.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.