CHICAGO (CN) — Illinois lawmakers approved the state's new congressional districts in a late night session, with the final approval not coming until after midnight on Friday morning. For the Republicans who will lose a U.S. House seat with the new map, and even some Democrats whose districts are being radically reshaped, it's a bitter pill to swallow.
"This will be the most gerrymandered map in the country," said state Representative Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore.
The redistricting process has been dogged by accusations of gerrymandering since it began in the spring. The approved new map, a fourth revision introduced to legislators and the public only hours before Thursday night's session, heavily favors Democrats.
With the 2020 census revealing that Illinois' population fell by more than 18,000 people since 2010, the state was forced to give up one of its 18 congressional seats. While the old map had 13 Democrat-controlled and five GOP-controlled districts, the new map will tip the scales even further - a projected 14 Democratic districts to only three for Republicans.
Even The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan watchdog group, gave the approved map a failing "F" grade on partisan fairness, competitiveness and geography.
Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the map sailed through the Democrat-controlled Illinois Senate in a 41-18 vote. It faced far stiffer competition in the state House, where it barely squeaked by with the minimum 71 required votes. Forty-three state representatives, including several Democrats, voted against it.
"It's not that I'm against the Democratic Party, of course not," Representative Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar, D-Chicago, said before the House vote. "But there was a lack of professionalism."
State Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, admitted the formation of the map was "a difficult and in many ways unpleasant process," but nevertheless defended the bill as fair and representative of the state's increasing diversity. It achieves a long-standing goal of Latino lawmakers in the state by creating a new Latino-majority district in the west Chicagoland area, adding to the current 4th District seat held by Democratic Congressman Chuy Garcia.
But Harmon also recognized that any redistricting process has winners and losers, and the single biggest loser of the night was GOP Congressman Adam Kinzinger of the current 16th District. With one less seat in Congress for the state's Republicans to share, Kinzinger faced a potential primary in 2022 against current 18th District Representative Darin LaHood for control of the new 16th District, which combines territory of both representatives' current districts.
Instead, Kinzinger announced Friday morning that he would not be seeking reelection in 2022.
"I... remember during [the 2009 congressional] campaign saying that if I ever thought it was time to move on from Congress, I would. And that time is now," Kinzinger said in a video statement released Friday.
Kinzinger's office did not immediately return a request for comment, but in the video statement Kinzinger assured supporters that that he intends to stay in politics, and hinted that he may also seek higher office.
"I cannot focus both on a reelection campaign to Congress and a broader fight nationwide... I want to make clear, this isn't the end of my political career, but the beginning," he said in his statement.
Kinzinger's announcement confirms months of rumors that his would be the forfeited GOP seat. His current 16th District includes liberal-leaning suburban areas that will help shore up Democratic Congresswoman Lauren Underwood when they are rolled into her 14th District heading into 2022.
Another loser in the new map is Democrat Marie Newman, one of the state's most progressive representatives and a first-term congresswoman at that. Newman's 3rd District, covering parts of the southwest side of Chicago and many of its southwestern suburbs, is completely dissolved under the new map. Its territory is split between the new 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th, 11th and 14th Districts, with the new 4th District taking the lion's share. Newman beat out conservative Democrat Dan Lipinski in the 2020 primary, evicting one of the last Democratic representatives to oppose abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
Newman opposed the map's passage as soon as it was introduced on Thursday, claiming like many other critics that it was the product of insider horse-trading.
"Illinois residents deserve fair representation and a fair map that includes public input - not one that turns a blind eye to it. This map undoubtedly does not live up to what Illinois residents deserve," Newman said in a prepared statement Thursday.
Newman's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new map, but she did announce her next political steps on Friday morning.
Instead of facing Garcia for control of the new 4th District - which would have been a rare confrontation between two left-leaning progressives and a fight she would be unlikely to win, given the new district's Latino majority – she announced late Friday morning that she would instead run against Democratic Congressman Sean Casten to represent the new 6th District.
“I am proud to announce that I am once again running to represent the residents of Chicago’s southwest side and our neighbors in the surrounding west and southwest suburbs,” Newman said in her statement. “The lion’s share of this new district is made up of the communities I represent today and I look forward to continuing to serve them in Congress.”
Despite the many criticisms of the new map, its proponents argued that it would represent the growing ethnic diversity of Illinois for the coming decade.
"I really do believe that this map represents the diversity of this state," state Representative Elizabeth Hernandez, D-Chicago, said shortly after midnight on Friday. It was the last Democratic comment on the district plan, moments before it became Illinois' official congressional map for the next 10 years.
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