Illinois election lawyer Michael Kasper

A lawsuit filed May 11 seeks to stop the Independent Maps Coalition from putting a new way to draw Illinois legislative district boundaries before Illinois voters this November.

The suit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court by Michael Kasper, a close ally of House Speaker Michael Madigan. The suit asks the court to stop the Illinois State Board of Elections from verifying 570,000 citizen signatures presented by Independent Maps to take away the power to remap districts from the General Assembly and give it to a panel overseen by the Illinois Supreme Court.

Kasper also filed the 2014 suit that kicked off the ballot a previous attempt to change the redistricting process.

Dennis FitzSimons, chair of Independent Maps, said he was expecting a lawsuit to try to stop the referendum.

“Political insiders want to deny voters the chance to reform Illinois government,” Fitzsimons said in a statement on the organization’s website.

“Independent polls show close to two-thirds of Illinois voters are ready to vote ‘yes’ on an independent, transparent and impartial process for drawing state legislative maps. Springfield insiders aren’t willing to risk those odds and would rather cynically preempt at the courthouse what they cannot win at the ballot box.”

Every 10 years, following the release of the U.S. Census, legislative boundaries in Illinois can be adjusted to reflect population changes. Politicians on both sides have twisted, stretched and maneuvered the maps to keep incumbents in power, or to remap opponents out of their own districts. The majority party in Springfield has used district maps to consolidate power for decades.

Even President Obama chastised the General Assembly when he visited Springfield saying “In America, politicians should not pick their voters; voters should pick their politicians.”

The new suit calls the ISBE’s verifying the signatures as a “waste of public funds” and urges the court to halt processing of the petitions. The suit also asserts that changing district boundaries is outside the scope of a citizen initiative in the Illinois constitution. The suit also says the Illinois Supreme Court should not be the body that oversees the mapping.

A group of minority and union-based leaders calling themselves People’s Map have alleged that the Independent Maps proposal is flawed.

Chicagoan John T. Hooker, chair of People’s Map complained in an email that the panel setting map boundaries would be “an unelected and unaccountable commission.” Hooker said redistricting reforms in other states have been overturned because they “dilute minority voting strength.”

“We know from actions in other states that unfair redistricting changes will have a dramatic negative impact on minorities,” Hooker wrote in a letter sent out in August. 2015. “Taking away our voice in the redistricting process will put Illinois one step closer to enacting extreme policies that hurt minorities.”

The letter was signed by Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union; Elzie Higginbottom, a Chicago Southside businessman; John Barrera, director of the Hispanic Business Foundation and Keith Kelleher, president of SEIU Healthcare, among others.

Although the lawyers filing the suit are close allies, Madigan, through a spokesman, said he did not have anything to do with the lawsuit. Madigan voted for a house redistricting reform bill that died before the deadline to get the initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot. The senate also passed a redistricting bill that also went nowhere.

“In recent weeks, Illinoisans have seen more action on redistricting reform than we’ve seen in more than four decades,” noted Independent Maps campaign manager David Mellet. “The hundreds of thousands of Illinois voters who signed Independent Map Amendment petitions clearly have gotten the attention of legislators.”

The Independent Maps group involved election lawyers in the campaign since the beginning to try to outfox the inevitable legal challenge that awaited them.

“Plain and simple, this lawsuit is a struggle for power,” FitzSimons said in a statement. “It is Illinois politicians struggling to retain the power to manipulate elections vs. citizens demanding reform. We knew this lawsuit would be the response to our submission of 570,000 petition signatures from Illinois voters, and we are ready to aggressively defend the constitutionality and fairness of the Independent Map Amendment.”

— Lawsuit creates roadblock for Independent Maps Coalition —