* Background…
Two elections have come and gone since the Illinois General Assembly passed new legislative maps, and Democrats’ attorneys argue in a new court filing that Illinois Republicans have lost their opportunity to challenge the maps in court.
A case brought to the Illinois Supreme Court by House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, asked the court to reject the current legislative map for its partisan bias and have a special master redraw the districts. But it is not yet known whether the court will take the case.
* From the Illinois Supreme Court today…
This cause comes before the court on the motion of Tony McCombie et al. for leave to file a complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief as an original action in this court under article IV, section 3, of the Illinois Constitution of 1970. Plaintiffs seek to challenge the legislative redistricting plan for election of members of the Illinois General Assembly signed into law on September 24, 2021. … The parties have filed briefs as directed by the court on the issue of whether plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file an original action pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 382 (eff. July 1, 2017) is timely. […]
Plaintiffs argue that their motion seeking leave to challenge the 2021 Enacted Plan under article IV, section 3, of the Illinois Constitution is timely, but they rely on federal and out-of-state case law for that proposition. These cases do not inform our decision on whether plaintiffs’ motion in this court is timely. Plaintiffs also fail to discuss or even recognize the expeditious filing and disposition of every previous redistricting case considered by this court since the adoption of the 1970 Constitution. See People ex rel. Scott v. Grivetti, 50 Ill. 2d 156 (1971) (per curiam) (plaintiffs sought to invoke this court’s original and exclusive jurisdiction on October 19, two months after the filing of the redistricting plan on August 10, 1971); Schrage v. State Board of Elections, 88 Ill. 2d 87 (1981) (plaintiffs sought to invoke this court’s original and exclusive jurisdiction on October 19, 14 days after the filing of the redistricting plan on October 5, 1981); People ex rel. Burris v. Ryan, 147 Ill. 2d 270 (1991) (plaintiffs sought to invoke this court’s original and exclusive jurisdiction on October 11, seven days after the filing of the redistricting plan on October 4, 1991); Cole-Randazzo v. Ryan, 198 Ill. 2d 233 (2001) (plaintiffs sought to invoke this court’s original and exclusive jurisdiction on September 27, two days after the filing of redistricting plan on September 25, 2001). Notably, plaintiffs do not even acknowledge this court’s most recent redistricting case from 2012, when this court similarly ordered the parties to brief the issue of timeliness of the challenge to the legislative map and then denied the plaintiffs leave to file their complaint. See Cross v. Illinois State Board of Elections, No. 113840 (Ill. June 7, 2012) (plaintiffs denied leave to file complaint after they waited eight months to seek leave to challenge the redistricting plan, from June 3, 2011, to February 8, 2012).
Plaintiffs’ timing in filing the instant motion shows a lack of due diligence. The current redistricting map was signed into law on September 24, 2021. On December 30, 2021, a three-judge federal district court panel in three consolidated cases rejected challenges that the map violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. § 10301 et seq. (2018)) and the equal protection clause (U.S. Const., amend. XIV) by engaging in racial gerrymandering. See McConchie v. Scholz, 577 F. Supp. 3d 842, 885 (N.D. Ill. 2021). No appeal was taken from that decision. Plaintiffs’ instant motion for leave to file in this court states that they are challenging the constitutionality of the 2021 Enacted Plan because it features numerous districts that were gerrymandered for strictly partisan purposes and that it violates the requirements of article IV, section 3(a), that legislative and representative districts are compact. Plaintiffs could have brought this argument years ago. Their claim that waiting multiple election cycles is necessary to reveal the effects of redistricting is unpersuasive.
Plaintiffs’ approach would also be prejudicial and create uncertainty for voters and officeholders alike, now and in the future, as to whether any redistricting plan in Illinois is ever final. Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file was brought more than three years and four months after the adoption of the current map. This delay is 32 months more than the delay in the 2012 challenge, which this court denied in Cross. We are closer to the next decennial census than the last. Plaintiffs seek to use data that may now be stale, which could be prejudicial to the parties as well as the public.
For these reasons, plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to Rule 382 is untimely and barred by laches.
Justice David Overstreet dissented. Justice Lisa Holder White took no part in the decision.
I’ll post any statements I receive from the House Republican Leader.
