Proposed Illinois maps would empower Black voters in East St. Louis area, NAACP says
The East St. Louis NAACP chapter hopes a panel of judges will decide to use a map that creates a mostly Black House district in the metro-east instead of one approved by Democrats.
In the state legislative map Democrats approved in September, a fifth of Black voters were moved out of East St. Louis, and thousands of white voters were moved in to empower nearby white legislators, an NAACP lawsuit alleges.
After analyzing the Democrats’ map, the court determined the NAACP and others challenging the map could propose their own solutions.
The NAACP submitted its proposed map Thursday, as did Illinois Republicans. Both would move Black voters back into state House District 114 represented by Democratic state Rep. LaToya Greenwood.
The proposed map includes East St. Louis, extends to include the “diverse” urban and suburban Belleville area, and continues east toward Scott Air Force Base, the NAACP stated in a brief submitted to the court. It also restores white voters “from far-flung rural reaches of St. Clair County” into their original districts, consolidating the Black vote.
The map would create a 114th District where Black voters make up 49.5% of the voting age population. Black voters make up only 33.4% of District 114 in the Democratic map, according to the suit.
The NAACP says if the court decides to stick with the Democrats’ map, Black voters won’t have the power to elect a Black representative, as they have since 1975.
Democrats “used Black voters as pawns in a political game of chess, moving them around without regard for these voters’ right to elect candidates of their choice,” the NAACP brief stated.
The Democratic map decreased the Black voting age population by 3.7% in District 114, the NAACP said, “turning the only opportunity district in Southern Illinois where Black voters were able to elect candidates of their choice to, at best, a toss-up district — with increasingly bleaker prospects for Black electoral success going forward.”
The NAACP lawsuit alleges Democrats in the General Assembly “unconstitutionally manipulated populations by race” and “unlawfully diluted the votes of Black voters.”
Greenwood previously defended the Democrats’ map in a statement to the BND.
“Under the new map, I believe the 114th District will remain a strong district for African-American representation in Springfield, and I would not have supported the map if I believed otherwise,” Greenwood said.
Republicans also proposed their map Thursday. It creates a majority-Black 114th District with a Black voting age population of 51.9%, according to a spokeswoman for Illinois Senate Republicans.
“We submitted a proposal that fixes specific constitutional problems with the current map that had only served to keep entrenched incumbents in power,” said state Senate Republican Caucus Chair Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington). “Democrats led by Governor (J.B.) Pritzker had only one thing in mind when drawing their map — protecting politicians at the expense of the people of Illinois.”
The three-judge federal court panel is expected to hear the NAACP’s case consolidated with two others during the week of Dec. 6, Capitol News Illinois reported.
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 2:21 PM.
