Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) | stock photo
Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) | stock photo
Despite initially promising to veto "unfair" legislative and congressional maps, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) has changed his tune and has now indicated he'd be alright with one drawn by his democratic colleagues.
Republican lawmakers in the state have proposed creating a bipartisan commission to redrawing these boundaries, since redistricting typically is a "highly partisan process" in Illinois.
"Since the redistricting hearings began, Senate Republicans have insisted on waiting to draw new legislative and congressional boundaries until the full and complete U.S. Census Bureau data on the 2020 Census are available," Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) wrote in a post on her Facebook page. "The report is expected to be released late this summer."
According to a post on Bryant's Senate website, a citizen witness was told information from the American Community Survey (ACS) was being used to allow people to draw proposed maps on a website created by the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Reporters have taken notice of Pritzker's backpedaling. Champaign News-Gazette columnist Jim Dey wrote Pritzker has pretended he never promised to veto a map that wasn't fair.
The editorial board for the Wall Street Journal also noted Pritzker went from insisting on "an independent commission" to being willing to accept one drawn by a Democratic-majority legislative body.
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