Note: User Roguemapper provided me with invaluable advice on this diary and deserves no less credit than myself.
The Illinois Republican Party is fighting the passed and signed Democratic gerrymander of Illinois drawn by Speaker Madigan. The Democratic maps roll back 2010 and strongly favor Dems in 12 of the 18 districts that will be used over this decade. It also double bunks quite a few state legislature Republicans and prevents them from ever taking a majority in either chamber for at least a decade. Understandably, the IL GOP is taking them to court under charges that it discriminates against Republicans and does not create a second Hispanic-majority seat. The former charge is a nonstarter since court precedent indicates that discrimination against a political party is nonjusticiable. The latter charge, on the other hand, has some merit. The Hispanic population of Illinois has grown quite a bit and is now 15.8% of the state's population, greater than the state's African-American population. Thus, the case theoretically has merit. However, reality does not measure out that way.
More below the fold.
The map drawn by the Republican plaintiffs (which I cannot find right now) is a Republican gerrymander that creates a likely 10 GOP - 8 Dem configuration. Its two Hispanic districts are ~65% (of voting age population) Hispanic and 46.5% (of voting age population) Hispanic. However, there are three major issues here. The first is that the Voting Rights Act doesn't compel the creation of plurality-minority seats (often called "influence seats"). They are legal to create, but are not under the auspices of the VRA. The second issue is that the 7th District Circuit Court of Appeals (that Illinois resides within) established the precedent (see Barnett v. City of Chicago ) that when one constructs a Latino-majority seat, it is only legitimate if a majority of the citizen VAP is Hispanic. The third issue is that racial gerrymanders are illegal, even if they succeed in following all of the above criteria.
However, just for the heck of it, I drew my own attempt at two Hispanic-majority districts in Illinois. I'll post each one with racial stats and the explanation from Roguemapper on why these districts fail the VRA criteria.
In Chicago, there are two pockets of heavily Hispanic territory that sandwich a pocket of heavily African-American territory. The northern pocket is largely Puerto Rican; the southern pocket is largely Mexican-American. These two Hispanic pockets were used to create Rep. Luis Gutierrez' earmuff district back in 1991. Here, I undid the earmuff and use both pockets to make two Hispanic-majority seats. Also, it should be noted that CVAP is not downloaded to Dave's Redistricting App, so I used VAP to gauge these districts.
District 4 (red)
This district starts in the southern Hispanic pocket and takes in heavily-Latino Cicero, Stickney, and part of Lyons.
Racial statistics (VAP): 59.8% Hispanic
Since the bulk of its population is in a Mexican-American portion of Chicago, Roguemapper states that it may not be majority-Hispanic if you gauge it by CVAP.
District 5 (gold)
This district starts with the largely Puerto Rican part of Chicago and then stretches out to Elgin.
Racial statistics (VAP): 51.2% Hispanic
Roguemapper took greater issue with this district because it is almost certainly a racial gerrymander. Furthermore, there is also a likelier chance that it falls short of being 50% Hispanic of the CVAP.
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In conclusion, the Illinois Republican Party has a losing case. Unlike with the African-American community, it is impossible to draw two Hispanic-majority districts that both have a Hispanic citizen majority and are not racial gerrymanders. You cannot get both in Illinois, no matter how you draw the districts.
That's all for this diary. I hope you found it illuminating.
P.S. I was not originally planning to post this to the public as I did not want to accidentally give the IL GOP any pointers in their case if I succeeded in drawing two Hispanic-majority seats. Roguemapper, however, reassured me that it will not.
3:55 PM PT: Here are some key excerpts from the Barnett v. City of Chicago case:
Likewise, because of both age and the percentage of noncitizens, Latinos must be 65 to 70 percent of the total population in order to be confident of electing a Latino.
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We think that citizen voting-age population is the basis for determining equality of voting power that best comports with the policy of the statute. We can set to one side both the census and the virtual representation of noncitizens by citizens.
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Neither the census nor any other policy or practice suggests that Congress wants noncitizens to participate in the electoral system...
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And we are already departing from the literal meaning of "electorate" in using citizen voting-age population rather than registered voters-perhaps corrected for differences in turnout-as the base.
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Our conclusion that the proper benchmark for measuring proportionality is citizen voting-age population is consistent with the caselaw.