McLean County Times

State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) wonders when voters will finally tire of all Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s inconsistences in establishing the voice of their communities.

“He has now broken his promise to the people of Illinois twice,” Rezin recently posted on Twitter.  “It’s not déjà vu. Gov. Pritzker did sign politician-drawn legislative maps.”

The newly redrawn maps signed by the governor in September are set to be used in elections for the next decade.

Democrats revised previously drawn maps they had passed earlier this summer after legal challenges from Republican lawmakers and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on the grounds they were unconstitutional because they were based on numbers from the American Community Survey rather than the 2020 U.S. Census, which had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acting on the maps before a late June deadline assured Democrats of being able to stay in control of the process as opposed to running the risk of a bipartisan committee being convened to undertake the job.

Rezin isn’t the only Republican lawmaker taking issue with the way things have been handled, with state Rep. Jackie Haas (R-Kankakee) also deriding the 'sham' process back in September.

"Instead of shifting responsibility to a bipartisan commission, Democrats have fallen back on the same disingenuous process that produced the initial flawed maps last spring that now need to be re-done,” she posted on Facebook. “Hearings were held that were nothing short of a sham, a disingenuous effort that was intended to merely check a box, not to collect any real input from community groups on what the new map should look like.”

Republican state Rep. Jeff Keicher (R-Sycamore) is even more direct, insisting “politicians should not be drawing maps. Period."