Court Opinion

ID: 9733905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:20:05.466098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:44.422356
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CARMAN, also dissenting: The Illinois Constitution of 1970 requires legislative and representative districts to “be compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. IV § 3(a). The majority goes to great lengths to stress that the redistricting process requires a careful weighing of factors, and that compactness is but one of several different factors to be considered. 198 Ill. 2d at 300. Compactness is not optional; it is mandated by the Illinois Constitution. Legislative districts need not be perfect, but “reasonably compact.” People ex rel. Burris v. Ryan, 147 Ill. 2d 270, 282 (1991) (Ryan I); Schrage v. State Board of Elections, 88 Ill. 2d 87, 95 (1981), People ex rel. Scott v. Grivetti, 50 Ill. 2d 156, 166 (1971). Plaintiffs here, much like plaintiff interveners in Cole-Randazzo v. Ryan, 198 Ill. 2d 233 (2001), have proposed modifications to certain districts in the Commission’s map that would result in districts that are not only equally populated but also substantially more compact. Although, as the majority correctly notes, it is not the function of this court to compare maps to determine whether districts were formulated to be as compact as possible, it is this court’s function to determine whether “ ‘the principle of compactness of territory has been applied at all.’ ” 198 Ill. 2d at 302, quoting People ex rel. Woodyatt v. Thompson, 155 Ill. 451, 480 (1895). From a visual inspection of the Commission’s map — the final version of which was adopted less than 24 hours after being proposed — it appears that the Commission did not attempt to apply the constitutional principle of compactness to certain districts. For example, plaintiffs challenge, in part, Representative Districts 99, 100, 113, and 114, districts I concluded in Cole-Randazzo were severely gerrymandered and appear to violate the compactness requirement. ColeRandazzo, 198 Ill. 2d at 247 (Garman, J., dissenting, joined by Thomas, J.). District 114 “is a bizarrely drawn U-shaped district that substantially wraps around Representative District 113. Similarly, Representative District 100 wraps around the 99th Representative District on three sides.” Cole-Randazzo, 198 Ill. 2d at 247 (Carman, J., dissenting, joined by Thomas, J.). Further, plaintiffs challenge the 104th Representative District, which includes parts of Champaign and Vermilion Counties and, much like the above districts, encircles the 103rd Representative District almost in its entirety. The 103rd District spans only eight miles from north to south and nine miles from east to west, and includes the cities of Champaign and Urbana in Champaign County. In contrast, adjacent Representative District 105 runs approximately 73 miles from north to south, 61 miles from east to west, and includes six counties. Plaintiffs also challenge the 75th Representative District, a district also challenged by the plaintiff intervenors in Cole-Randazzo. This district presents the classic gerrymander in that it is shaped much like a dragon, with its head situated in the northern part of La Salle County and a tail that swoops down into Iroquois County. In Schrage, 88 Ill. 2d at 98, this court invalidated a representative district that was “a tortured, extremely elongated form which [was] not compact in any sense.” We noted that equal population of the invalidated district and an adjacent representative district could be achieved without “doing violence to the concept of compactness.” Schrage, 88 Ill. 2d at 98. Supporters of the challenged district were unable to advance any reason to justify the departure from the compactness requirement. Schrage, 88 Ill. 2d at 98. I see no distinction between the district invalidated in Schrage and several of the districts challenged by plaintiffs in the cases at bar. Further, the record of proceedings indicates no evidence of neutral criteria to support the apparent departure of certain districts from the constitutional requirement of compactness. As noted by Justice Thomas in his dissent in Cole-Randazzo, 198 Ill. 2d at 242 (Thomas, J., dissenting, joined by Garman, J.), the majority of the record and witness testimony does not even address the constitutional validity of the final version of the Commission’s map. Finally, in Cole-Randazzo, the majority failed to address the plaintiff intervenors’ challenge to the proceedings that led to the adoption of the redistricting map challenged today. There, plaintiff intervenors alleged that the proceedings were flawed because, inter alia, the final redistricting plan was proposed and passed within a 24-hour period and expert witnesses were presented without advance notice or a meaningful time to prepare cross-examination. Here, the majority notes that “plaintiffs in the cases before us today make no claim that the process employed by the Commission in formulating the new redistricting plan was in any way improper.” 198 Ill. 2d at 297. Nevertheless, the majority later states that the Commission held “a series of meetings and public hearings,” “considered various plans,” received “evidence regarding the plans’ strengths and weaknesses,” and heard testimony from several expert witnesses and others. 198 Ill. 2d at 299. Again, the majority fails to address the heart of the matter and attempts to cloak the proceedings with validity. The court has avoided its duty. Whether plaintiffs expressly challenge the validity of the proceedings, this court has a duty to ensure that the process that ultimately results in a redistricting map that will represent the people of Illinois for the next decade will be “equitable, balanced, and fair.” Cole-Randazzo, 198 Ill. 2d at 244 (Thomas, J., dissenting, joined by Car-man, J.). For the reasons stated above, I would remand this map to the Redistricting Commission; therefore, I respectfully dissent. JUSTICE THOMAS joins in this dissent.