It appears that all the legislation dealing with redistricting has finally passed now that the Illinois Judicial District legislation has passed the General Assembly (just awaiting a likely Governor's signature). The Champaign County and C-U Local Cheat Sheets focus almost entirely on local government and local candidates, but the State redistricting runs right through our local communities.
For a lot of information on the legal process, dates, before and after maps, etc Ballotpedia's redistricting page on U.S. Congressional and State of Illinois General Assembly districts has a lot of helpful information.
The most detailed maps with zoom functions and comparing before and after are on the Ballotpedia website here. There are also some additional maps at the Illinois Democratic Party's page here. Direct links to maps:
- U.S. Congressional District Map
- State of Illinois General Assembly, Senate and House Maps
- Illinois Supreme Court district map (it appears Champaign County is still in the 5th District compared to the current map here).
The General Assembly's passage of the new State judicial circuit and sub-circuit maps just happened this week. The changes appear to give some Illinois Counties with likely Democratic Party majorities, like Champaign County a bit more party representation opportunities on the court compared to circuit-wide elections that include far more surrounding rural populations and lean more Republican overall. The Springfield State Journal-Register had Capitol News Illinois coverage of the bill and its passage:
Democrats in the Illinois Senate and House pushed through legislation Wednesday night that would create new judicial “subcircuits” in Sangamon, Madison and DuPage counties.
Before sending House Bill 3138 to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk with no Republican votes, Democrats who control the General Assembly defended the new proposed subcircuits and other changes in residential qualifications for elected circuit judges in the Chicago area the counties of Peoria, Champaign and Rock Island. They said the plan would give Black and Hispanic judicial candidates more of a chance to get elected...
Republicans said the move is a brazen attempt to fill the bench with Democratic judges who would support Democratic initiatives and philosophies in court rulings.
Full article with more details here. The News-Gazette's Jim Dey had an article critical of the changes here, but it included some helpful descriptions of how some of the court seats would end up elected within Champaign County as opposed to across the full Sixth Circuit region:
Champaign County is among many affected counties. The evolving proposal calls for all three local circuit judges currently elected from the six-county Sixth Circuit to run only in Champaign County in future elections.
This change was proposed several months ago by state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who complained that judges are overwhelmingly White and male.
The transition takes effect on the retirements of circuit judges Jason Bohm, Randy Rosenbaum and Roger Webber.
Champaign County has six circuit judges — three at-large and three resident. The resident judges are Ramona Sullivan, Ben Dyer and Sam Limentato.
That full opinion piece here. More information on the structure of the Sixth Circuit here, list of judges here, map here, and an explanation of circuit versus associate judges here. The Cheat Sheet's judges page is dire need of an update and on the to-do list.
For previous coverage of the redistricting of the County Board districts, see this previous Cheat Sheet post or the News-Gazette coverage here.
Race and Candidates:
There were a couple recent news items highlighting potential candidates for these new districts. The Cheat Sheet won't have a lot of further information and updates about them, but the Champaign County Voter Alliance has had some great non-partisan candidate guides in recent years. The League of Women Voters of Champaign County has candidate events to keep an eye out for as well!
The News-Gazette had updates on incumbent representatives at the State level of government running again. The list includes Representatives Carol Ammons (D - 103rd), Mike Marron (R - 104th) and Tom Bennett (R - 106th). It also includes Senators Chapin Rose (R-51st) and Scott Bennett (D - 52nd).
It could be the first part of 2022 before they know the territory they’d represent — pending a ruling by a federal panel of judges on redrawn maps — but five local state legislators say they all plan to run for re-election 11 months from now.
Full article here.
Now that the U.S. Congressional races this year finally have districts after a convoluted process by the State of Illinois government to deal with late census data and lawsuits. it's becoming more clear who may run for which seat. Some early updates on potential candidates are available for the IL-13 Congressional District candidates so far: Democrats David Palmer and Nikki Budzinski. The News-Gazette's Tom Kacich had some early fundraising information for the IL-13 candidates here. The very recently announced candidates for the IL-15 here (Republicans so far) started off with some fireworks almost right out of the gate.
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