McHenry Times

The deadline is approaching for new legislative districts to be finalized for Illinois. The process happens once a decade, is normally done by the majority party and typically uses fresh U.S. Census data. 

This decade's redistricting faces many challenges, including delays in official census data, concern regarding the state's long history of gerrymandering and Democrats' insistence on using less accurate, less reliable American Community Survey (ACS) data to determine how district lines should be redrawn. 

On the House floor last week, state Rep. Steve Reick (R-Woodstock) urged his colleagues to remember the limitations of ACS data. 

"There's been a lot of talk about the use of the ACS as the means by which we determine those representative districts," Reick said, stating that the less official ACS data is meant for and limited to community development issues such as new schools, new firehouses, new water districts or new enterprise zones. "[...] It was never meant to determine how many voters lived in a particular district."

Ideally an independent bipartisan commission of Illinois residents picks the new districts using official U.S. Census data; however, with the delay in the census results, Democrats are shoving past concern that ACS data isn't suitable for redistricting. 

Gov. Pritzker originally vowed during his campaign to veto any partisan map put on his desk; he has since changed course and announced that he trusts Democrats to create a fair map.

According to Prairie State Wire, more Illinoisans disapprove of Pritzker than those who approve of him. 

"I want to emphasize that this is the proper use [of ACS data]," Reick said of community development legislation, "but it was also the limit that was determined that the ACS was meant to be. It was never meant to be a catch-all, be-all to count every vote and every person."

Reick pointed out that a new water district and counting every Illinoisan as one vote per the U.S. Constitution are at highly different standards.

"And those standards have to be abided by through the census," Reick said, "not through things like ACS."