Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced a new bill that would hand over the process of drawing new legislative and congressional district maps to an independent commission that would be required to use official Census Bureau, rather than survey estimates, to draw the maps.
 
The latest bill, introduced Tuesday as an amendment to Senate Bill 1325, mirrors a proposed constitutional amendment that was introduced in 2019. That proposal, which had 37 cosponsors, died in the 101st General Assembly without receiving a hearing.
 
“Voters shouldn't have to rely on politicians who draw maps solely to fulfill their self-serving interests,” Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, the bill’s chief sponsor, said during a virtual news conference. “Remember … just last year, 18 Democrats in the Illinois Senate signed on to a constitutional amendment supporting an independent mapmaking commission. We've taken the language of that constitutional amendment and we're proposing to do just that by statute.”
 
Every 10 years, states redraw their legislative and congressional district maps to align with the most recent decennial census. That process is being complicated this year, as the census data needed to complete those tasks has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors.
 
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