Chicago Tribune By  RICK PEARSON
Illinois Democrats, already drawing legislative and congressional maps to solidify their majorities in those bodies, on Tuesday offered a new map of state Supreme Court districts in an effort to ensure the party maintains control of the stateâs highest court.
Illinois Supreme Court districts havenât been redrawn since 1964. But changing demographics and shifting regional politics, as well as the ouster of a Democratic justice by voters last year, has Democrats fearing that their advantage on the court could evaporate in next yearâs election.
Republicans accused Democrats of a lack of transparency in producing the new judicial map as well as the legislative map. They noted no public hearings were held on the new Supreme Court districts and that the proposed boundaries, like the proposed new legislative boundaries, are based on population estimates and not on actual census results, which have been delayed, in part, by the pandemic.
âThis is a total sham process, anti-democratic, done at the expense of Illinoisans,â said state Sen. Jason Barickman of Bloomington, a member of the Republican leadership.
Democrats tried to make the point that they were merely updating the boundary lines to reflect a half-century of change in the state.
âThe boundaries for Illinois Supreme Court districts have not been updated for several decades, itâs time we make changes in recognition of the population changes and demographic shifts that have taken place since the 1960s,â said state Sen. Omar Aquino, the Chicago Democrat who chairs the state Senate Redistricting Committee.
âIllinois is a very different state than it was 60 years ago, and the voters of Illinois deserve to elect members to our stateâs highest court that reflect their values,â he said.
Though the judicial branch of government is supposed to be independent of party politics, thatâs far from the case in Illinois. Justices initially run under a party label, and party interests and allies work to influence the outcome both in those initial elections and when voters are asked to retain a Supreme Court justice after 10 years on the bench.
Last fall, in the stateâs sprawling 3rd Supreme Court district, which goes from Will County westward to the Mississippi River in north-central Illinois, Justice Thomas Kilbride became the first Supreme Court justice to lose retention. The Rock Island Democrat received 56.5% of the vote, failing to meet a 60% threshold to remain in office.
Kilbrideâs defeat came as Republican allies attacked his ties to embattled former House Speaker Michael Madigan that included taking money from Madiganâs Democratic Party operations. It also came amid widespread voter opposition to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzkerâs ballot proposal for a graduated-rate income tax that was defeated largely because of GOP-fueled voter distrust of a Democratic-led Springfield.
Democrat Robert Carter, an appellate court justice, was appointed by the Supreme Court as an interim justice to serve until next yearâs election. Carter has said he will not seek the post, and the GOP expects to pick up the seat as the district has become increasingly Republican.
Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin on Monday told reporters he expected an effort by Democrats to redraw the courtâs boundaries given Kilbrideâs defeat.
âQuite frankly, if they donât change that district, Republicans win and the balance of power would go to Republicans,â Durkin said, adding that Kilbrideâs rejection âsent a shock waveâ through Democratic-aligned interests in Springfield âknowing their days are numbered if that district was going to stay the same.â
Given the scope of cases that come before the court, its partisan makeup is of major importance. The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and organized labor are significant allies of Democrats, and business interests are major allies of Republicans. They have served as major funders in Supreme Court campaigns as their agendas play out in the courts and in the legislature.
One major function of the court is to act as a check and balance in determining the constitutionality of legislation approved by lawmakers and signed into law. With Democrats holding control of the legislature and, through Pritzker, the governorâs office, the partisan influence can often play into the courtâs decisions.
One example was the high courtâs 4-3 rejection in 2016 of citizen-driven efforts to amend the state constitution to ask voters if the state should create an independent mapmaking commission to take the power of redrawing legislative boundaries out of the hands of state lawmakers.
The state constitution allows Supreme Court districts to be redrawn at any time, but lawmakers have traditionally used boundaries for the circuit, appellate and Supreme Court laid out in a 1964 overhaul of the stateâs court system.
The 1970 constitution requires the state to be divided into five Supreme Court districts. Cook County forms a single district and is allocated three seats, while the rest of the state is divided into four districts, each with its own seat. It is the Cook County allocation that has helped keep the Democratic majority on the high court.
The four districts outside of Cook County are supposed to be compact, keep counties whole and be of âsubstantially equalâ population. The population requirement has not been met for several decades with the Chicago suburban 2nd District holding a population of more than 3.1 million people compared with two Downstate districts with populations of less than 1.3 million.
The map proposed by Democrats on Tuesday would split up the Chicago suburbs into two court districts.
The 2nd District, which currently contains the counties of DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, DeKalb and counties northwest would consist only of Kane, Kendall, DeKalb, McHenry and Lake counties.
The 3rd District, where Kilbride lost retention, would become more compact with DuPage joining with Will on a district that roughly follows Interstate 80 past Ottawa and south along the Indiana border.
The 4th District, now comprised of central Illinois, would take in west-central Illinois and go north to take in the Quad Cities and Rockford. And the 5th District, currently compromised of southern Illinois, would take in east-central Illinois and travel down to Metro-East and take in deep southern Illinois.
John Pastuovic, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, a coalition of business interests that has frequently battled the stateâs civil trial bar over damage awards, said the Democratsâ argument that new maps are needed due to population was âa convenient narrative. It is also disingenuous.â
Pastuovic said the newly drawn 3rd District would reduce a Republican advantage of 55% to 45%, to just 51% to 49%, based on voting data. The redrawn 2nd District would become a 50-50 toss-up, he said.
âSince the Democrats only have to win one of those seats to maintain their majority on the court, Las Vegas would probably like their odds,â he said.
The new map lines mean Justice Michael Burke, a Republican appointed for the 2nd District in March 2020 following the retirement of Bob Thomas, will likely be forced to run in the 3rd District because of the shift of DuPage County from the 2nd to the 3rd, Pastuovic said.
But Rep. Jay Hoffman, an assistant Democratic leader from Downstate Swansea and member of the House Redistricting Committee, said the population imbalance in the existing districts âcries out for reform.â
A new court district map, as in the case of new legislative and congressional boundaries, move through the legislative process like any other bill. It would require House and Senate approval as well as the governorâs signature. Pritzker has not yet commented on a new Supreme Court map.
But as the first public hearings on new boundaries for the 118 Illinois House and 59 state Senate seats began later Tuesday, Republicans were once again calling on Pritzker to veto the map for General Assembly districts to fulfill a campaign pledge that he would strike down a partisan-drawn redistricting plan.
âGovernor, these maps are the worst example of politicians picking their people, drawn behind closed doors without public input,â said state Rep. Tim Butler of Springfield, the ranking Republican on the House Redistricting Committee. âGovernor, you need to veto these maps.â
Democrats brought to the hearing, virtually, an expert long relied upon to defend past redistricting efforts, Allan Lichtman of American University. Lichtman defended the Democratsâ use of American Community Survey data in lieu of actual census numbers, which wonât be available until mid-August, as the âbest data available.â
âThis is not due to any fault of anyone in Illinois. That is due to deep problems in the federal government with the conduct of the census, problems we have never witnessed before in the taking of the census,â he said.
He said ACS survey data was used âall the timeâ by researchers and population analysts. But when Lichtman was asked by Republicans if Democrats were using ACS data or other sources for their maps, he said he didnât know.
The legislative maps released Friday night also faced criticism from Madeleine Doubek, executive director of CHANGE Illinois, a coalition of more than 30 organizations that have long sought an independent commission-style mapmaking process.
Doubek said the maps were based on âflawed data never meant to used for redistrictingâ and that the survey undercounts âtens of thousandsâ of people compared with actual census results, especially in Black communities.
âThe ACS collection process lacks the trusted community partnerships and engagement with civil rights organizations that are needed to ensure an accurate count in historically disenfranchised communities,â she said.
