South Central Reporter

State Rep. Avery Borne (R-Litchfield) fears the spirit of Mike Madigan is alive and well in Springfield when it comes to the once-every-decade task of map redistricting.

“They’re following his playbook,” Bourne said in a video posted to YouTube.” They introduced it to the day almost 10 years later. This is worse than the Madigan playbook, but it is the Madigan playbook. Illinoisans, all of us, even the governor when he campaigned, called for an independent process.”

Instead, Bourne and other Republican lawmakers argue what they’ve gotten is a process that lacks transparency and is completely designed to keep Democrats in power.

Bourne recently took to social media for another video where she argued there’s a better way.

“I’m here today to reinforce what we’ve heard over the last months, but particularly over the weekend from Illinois residents and community groups who are extremely concerned that their voices were not heard in the development of this resulting new legislative map proposal,” she said. “Late Friday, we saw a new map proposal released by Democrats that we still don’t know what data they used or what process they used to reach this result.”

“They are doing the exact same thing Madigan did,” she said. “You’re doing it in the same backroom Mike Madigan did in order to maintain power.”

Bourne has a warning about what she thinks it could all mean.  

“A flawed process produces a flawed product, which is what we have in these new maps,” she said. “These maps were allegedly created using the American Community Survey data; we’re not sure what else. If we aren’t counting all of Illinois residents, the map is inherently flawed and we are not adequately representing them in the legislature.”

Due to the delay of federal Census Bureau data largely caused by COVID-19, a bipartisan panel may redraw the maps this year. Bylaws dictate if a new map is not completed by a June 30 deadline, a bipartisan commission with four members from each party chosen by party leaders will supervise redistricting.