Sangamon Sun

Rep. Tim Butler (R-Springfield) is urging Democrats in Springfield to give the voters what they want when it comes to creating new legislative maps.

"People want an open, transparent and citizen-led process to draw the maps for the next 10 years," Davis said at a recent House hearing. "We have legislation out there currently that Sen. (Jason) Barickman (R-Bloomington) has in the Senate, legislation we could pass this week and have on the governor's desk. We should pass the legislation. We should set up a commission, and that's the way we should draw the maps."

Republican lawmakers are supporting Barickman's People's Independent Maps Act as the answer. The measure would remove politicians from the process of map redrawing and instead pave the way for the state Supreme Court to appoint 16 citizen commissioners to an independent redistricting commission within 30 days of passage.

"It's the way people want their maps drawn, and I'm fearful that the majority is not going down that path and will have once again have partisan drawn maps in Illinois," Butler said.

Former Illinois House candidate Marco Sukovic wrote in an April 6 Medium article that he sees the same thing and is demanding more transparency in the process.

"What is the underlining data set that's going to be used to do the redistricting," Sukovic wrote. "Is it going to be the U.S. Census Bureau, or is it going to be some amalgamation of American Community Service (ACS) data. In my research, as it relates to the quality of U.S. Bureau data, nothing comes close to it."

U.S. Census Bureau officials have said that the data typically provided for redistricting will not be available by a June 30 deadline, giving Republicans to push for a revamping of the system.

The majority party typically heads redistricting. In Illinois, Democrats control the House and Senate.