THE ILLINOIZE: Thursday Free for All
November 4, 2021
Good morning.
I submitted an opinion piece to newspapers around the state on redistricting, arguing that nobody wins, and voters lose because of gerrymandered maps. I’m sharing the link from the Alton Telegraph, as they were the first to post it online.
Here’s a snippet:
Democrats coined a good public relations phrase during the decennial redistricting process. They all repeated it, sometimes ad nauseum: “our maps reflect the diversity of our state.”
Undermining their arguments are lawsuits from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the NAACP over maps redrawing state legislative districts. MALDEF argues Democrats shortchanged Latino representation even after Latinos became the second largest minority in the state. The NAACP has sued over alleged voter “cracking” in East St. Louis, and other African American groups argue the number of Black majority districts has been cut in half.
Limiting the impact of the people that make the state diverse kind of tosses that talking point out the window, doesn’t it?
The legal challenges are currently before a three-judge panel in federal court in Chicago that could declare the legislative map unconstitutional by the end of the year.
But let’s keep one important part in mind when discussing both the legislative map and the congressional map passed by the legislature last week.
These maps were drawn with three goals in mind: to protect Democratic majorities at all costs, to keep an unbalanced number of city of Chicago residents in the General Assembly or Congress, and, of course, to protect existing incumbents.
While Democrats are the guilty party in the current map, I’d be saying the exact same thing if Republicans were trying to gerrymander the Loop and shoehorn it into a Republican district.
It’s not that I’m trying to toot my own horn or I think my ideas are best, I want people to be talking about these issues. Too often, the public just shrugs its shoulders at things like redistricting, and they really shouldn’t. We need to engage them better.
That said, we need your help to keep spreading the word. Would you join us as a paid subscriber? Subscribers get two regular subscriber-only newsletters each week, and this week we broke the news of the exit of two GOP House members before anyone else had it. There’s value there, that’s all I’m sayin’.
Click the button and join us in our cause to shed a light on state politics and government in our state.
As always, drop me a note at patrick@theillinozie.com. I try to read notes from everyone, even the people spewing wild anti-vaxxer talking points.
Let’s get to it.
YOUR THURSDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Ex-state Rep. Luis Arroyo pleads guilty in bribery case tied to sweepstakes machines (Chicago Tribune)
Former state Rep. Luis Arroyo pleaded guilty Wednesday in a bribery scheme involving a shadowy lobbying effort to expand the use of sweepstakes gaming machines that also led to criminal charges against the son-in-law of onetime Cook County Democratic boss Joseph Berrios.
Arroyo, 67, who resigned soon after he was charged with bribery in October 2019, changed his plea during a telephone hearing before U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger. Sentencing was set for Feb. 18.
The former Democratic legislator from Chicago made what is known as a blind plea to one count alleging he deprived the public of his honest services through the bribery scheme, a move in which he admits guilt without an agreement as to the length of sentence.
The maximum penalty could be 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release after prison, but his lawyers and prosecutors can make their own recommendations for the judge to consider for sentencing. The government is also seeking forfeiture from Arroyo of up to $32,500, an amount contested by the defendant.
And when Seeger asked how he would plead, Arroyo said: “I plead guilty, judge.”
By the way, the guy Arroyo tried to bribe? Allegedly, it was former Sen. Terry Link, who wore reportedly wore a wire at the statehouse and eventually had to resign after his own tax fraud issues. This stuff boggles the mind.
Related: Illinois lawmakers consider watchdog candidates amid GOP complaints that delays could leave the post vacant (Chicago Tribune)
Chicago police union head renews call for thousands of officers to disobey vaccine reporting mandate, but department compliance jumps to 76% (Chicago Tribune)
As the share of Chicago police officers following Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s vaccine reporting mandate grows, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president said Wednesday he wants more than 1,000 officers to disobey direct orders to comply in the hopes of jamming the Police Department with a flood of paperwork.
“Our position on the portal is the same: Do not comply with the portal,” Catanzara said about the city platform for reporting vaccination status. “The goal now is to have over a thousand or 2,000 officers subject themselves to disobeying a direct order. They can never process that many.”
A mayor’s office spokesperson released a statement in response to Catanzara’s comments, calling them “yet another desperate attempt by FOP leadership to encourage Chicago police officers to disobey a direct and lawful order from their chain of command.”
The statement also said: “Our police officers are smarter than their union leader’s rhetoric and will not allow public safety to be jeopardized in the name of illogical and baseless misinformation.”
Related: It's time: Where to get kids' COVID-19 vaccinations in the suburbs (Daily Herald)
Springfield District 186 teachers defying COVID vaccine mandate have until Nov. 10 to comply (State Journal-Register)
Normal Unit 5 teachers sue district over COVID mandates (The Pantagraph)
First vaccine appointments for younger kids in Champaign-Urbana filled up fast (Champaign News-Gazette)
Opinion: Pritzker, legislators shut down vaccine skeptics' hiding place (Champaign News-Gazette)
Rep. Mark Batinick, One of the House GOP's Perennially Endangered Members, Won't Seek Re-Election (The Illinoize)
Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield), a rare suburban Republican to withstand multiple well-funded Democrat challengers in recent years, says he will not seek re-election in 2022.
Batinick made the announcement on his radio show on WJOL-AM in Joliet. Word began to get around House Republican circles late Wednesday morning.
Batinick was elected to replace then-Minority Leader Tom Cross in 2014, who ran for State Treasurer. He faced heavily funded challengers every two years that were supported by the House Democrats and former Speaker Michael Madigan. He won re-election in 2018 by about 500 votes.
“I guess, at this point, by year eight, the millions of dollars of negative ads that are either not true or out of context, I guess we kind of grew numb to that. They almost became funny,” Batinick said. “It’s a hard job if you do it right. There was no one particular thing.”
In the final legislative map approved by Democrats in September, Batinick’s district became slightly more Democratic, making a path to re-election more difficult. But, he said he wasn’t afraid of his electoral chances.
Related: Rep. Mike Murphy (R-Springfield) likely to resign (The Illinoize)
Saying her district is at stake, Democratic lawmaker seeks to intervene in redistricting suit (Capitol News Illinois)
A Democratic member of the Illinois House has filed a motion in federal court to intervene as a separate defendant in a pair of lawsuits challenging the legislative redistricting plan that was signed into law in September.
Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar, who represents the largely Latino 22nd District on Chicago’s southwest side, is arguing that the composition of her district, and therefore her chances of reelection, could hang in the balance if the court decides to alter the map.
A three-judge panel in the Northern District of Illinois is hearing the lawsuits challenging the new maps. One was filed by Republican leaders in the General Assembly, Sen. Dan McConchie and Rep. Jim Durkin. Another was filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF.
The third case was filed by a group of civil rights organizations that include the East St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP. It was recently transferred to the Northern District to be heard alongside the other two.
Both the Republican and the MALDEF suits argue that the new districts dilute Latino voting power, either by “packing” them into concentrated districts or by “cracking” Latino neighborhoods into separate districts.
The Republican suit specifically mentions the 22nd District as one of only four new districts in which Latinos make up more than 50 percent of the voting age population. But it argues that lawmakers could have formed as many as six Latino districts on Chicago’s southwest side and southwestern suburbs.
“The McConchie Complaint explicitly proposes a revised September map that cuts through the 22nd District,” the motion states, referring to one alternative map portrayed in the GOP complaint.
The motion also states that Guerrero-Cuellar has a right to intervene, “to protect her right to reelection.”
I’m still trying to get my hands on the filing and wasn’t able to reach Guerrero-Cuellar yesterday, but, as of now, consider me an exact opposite of the opinion of one blogger yesterday that tried to lay this all at the feet of the Madigan organization. The 13th Ward is going to change regardless, and if you listened to the guts it took Cuellar to speak against the maps, it certainly seems apparent she’s trying to protect her Latino-majority district.
Related: Opinion: Why are remapping sessions rushed, quiet? (Herald & Review)
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