New map may create two suburban districts, leading to costly campaigns

From the Illinois Civil Justice League

In response to recent speculation that the Illinois legislature is considering redrawing the Illinois Supreme Court map for the first time in over 50 years, the Illinois Civil Justice League has issued a whitepaper to educate the legislators, decision makers and the general public on the requirements and challenges of this process. Issues examined in the whitepaper include constitutional, institutional, demographic and political considerations. The current Supreme Court consists of seven justices, three from Cook County as required by law and four from districts outside of Cook County. Democrats hold a 4-3 majority on the court.

“The 1970 Illinois Constitution provides guidelines for consideration of judicial political boundaries that divide the state into five judicial districts: Cook County and four judicial districts of ‘substantially equal population, each of which shall be compact and composed of contiguous counties’ that hold the potential to drastically remake the Illinois Supreme Court,” according to John Pastuovic, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League. “It is a fact that the reporting of cases from individual counties within 24 judicial circuits to the five appellate courts has worked, somewhat unchanged, for fifty years. A decision to remap the Supreme Court districts will set off a chain of events that will result in sweeping changes to Illinois’ judicial branch, requiring among other things, that some sitting judges may need to move or retire,” he added.

The Democrats will cite a host of political reasons for overhauling the Supreme Court districts at this time, particularly that, the suburban Second District, once Republican-leaning with reliable strongholds such as DuPage, Kane and Lake counties, is now twice the population of each of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Districts and outside the constitutional guidelines that require the districts be “substantially equal population.” “In reality, the decision to push for a remap is grounded in the fact that the defeat of the Third District’s Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride in his 2020 retention election has created an opportunity for a Republican to win that seat that now leans Republican and would give them their first Illinois Supreme Court majority in 50 years,” he continued.

While it’s clearly the goal of the Illinois Democrats to create at least one additional Democratic district to ensure their 4-3 majority on the Supreme Court, constitutional limitations and geo-political realities suggest that goal cannot be guaranteed. “According to our analysis, it appears that the Democrats’ best opportunity is to redraw the map to keep the currently configured Circuits whole, while creating two suburban Chicago districts that perform 50-50 in the off-presidential year cycle,” Pastuovic said.

“This scenario provides a remap that would move appointed Republican Justice Michael Burke and his home county of DuPage into a new district that includes only 62.6 percent of residents that he currently represents. This map would also create a suburban district that includes Kane, Lake, McHenry, Boone, and Winnebago counties that would have no current Supreme Court member. This would be an optimal strategy for Illinois Democrats: moving an appointed incumbent Republican into a new district with new territory, while taking an existing district and providing for no inherent incumbent. This scenario would set up two extremely competitive and costly Supreme Court races that will be fought out in the expensive Chicago media market,” Pastuovic concluded.

Read the entire whitepaper here.

From the Cook County Record

Faced with the possibility of losing their slim majority on the Illinois Supreme Court next year, Democrats in Springfield have moved to redraw the lines for the state high court’s five districts, carving up the bulk of the state in a new way for the first time since 1963.

On May 25, the Democrat-dominated Illinois State Senate Redistricting Committee released a proposed new map to geographically distribute the state’s Supreme Court justices.

And the new map could carry heavy political consequences for decades to come, as Democrats could improve their odds of holding their current 4-3 majority on the court, or even add yet another seat in a heavily Democratic election season.

The Illinois State Senate Redistricting Committee has released a proposed new map for the Illinois Supreme Court’s five districts. Here, the new proposed districts are shown by color shading, while existing district lines are outlined in black.

“It’s possible they (Democrats) could still potentially lose their majority,” said John Pastuovic, president of the Illinois Civil Justice League, a legal reform advocacy organization. “But, based on the data we’ve run on this, I think Las Vegas would set the odds in their favor.”

For decades, Illinois’ counties have been divided up into five Supreme Court districts. From those districts, Illinois voters elect seven state Supreme Court justices.

Three of the justices are elected from Cook County, which is counted as the state’s First District. Cook County has its own First District appellate court, as well.

Voters in the other four districts – with appellate courthouses in suburban Elgin and downstate Ottawa, Springfield and Mt. Vernon – each select one justice from their districts.

Read the entire Cook County Record story.