Liberal Media Dutifully Ignoring Illinois’ Blatant Gerrymandering Hypocrisy

Major legacy media outlets are overlooking the inconvenient truth about partisan gerrymandering in Illinois while Texas House Democrats take refuge in the state to thwart a GOP-led redistricting proposal.

On Sunday, dozens of House Democrats fled the Lone Star State for Illinois to deny the state House the quorum needed to pass a new congressional map that would give Republicans up to five additional seats. The stunt has received broad national coverage, but much of it fails to mention that the Texas lawmakers are sheltering in one of the most heavily gerrymandered states under the protection of rumored 2028 presidential hopeful Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

CBS News featured several of the Texas lawmakers who claim they are “fighting for representative democracy” and “willing to face whatever consequences may come our way.” However, the report made no mention of Illinois’ partisan congressional map, which gives Democrats 82% of the congressional seats despite President Donald Trump winning 43.5% of the state’s votes in the 2024 presidential election.

“Texas Democrats hold the line from hotel rooms as Abbott promises arrests,” reads a recent Politico headline on a piece that similarly omits relevant details about the gerrymandering in the very state the Democrats are using as a safe haven.

The New York Times reported that Texas Republicans are seeking to implement an “aggressively redrawn congressional map,” and noted that Pritzker is “weighing whether his state will respond to the move in Texas by redrawing its own congressional map in the Democrats’ favor.”

However, the NYT conveniently fails to mention that Illinois’ heavily-gerrymandered map leaves little room for further political maneuvering. Pritzker signed off on a new congressional map in 2021 that squeezed out one additional congressional seat for his party, bringing the Democratic total to 14 out of Illinois’ 17 seats.

In a piece titled “Texas election map fight swells into national political warfare,” The Washington Post similarly portrays Democrats as having their hands forced by Republicans to redraw maps, while glossing over Illinois’ history of gerrymandering for political gain.

“Pritzker is a hypocrite,” Illinois Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Instead of standing on his own political soapbox, posturing for president in 2028, Pritzker can lead the charge against gerrymandering by getting his own house in order and fixing Illinois’ rigged map.”

Illinois congressional maps are drawn by the state legislature, which critics say creates unfair incentives by effectively allowing lawmakers to choose their own voters.

The Gerrymandering Project at Princeton University — which grades congressional maps based on partisan advantage, competitiveness and geographic integrity — has rated the Illinois congressional map an “F.” Texas, which also has a legislature-led redistricting process, received an overall score of “F” for its current map, although it received a “C” for competitiveness.

“Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s warm welcome of Texas Democrats abandoning their state to thwart Republican redistricting efforts reveals glaring hypocrisy,” Joe Tabor, director of legal research at the Illinois Policy Institute, told the DCNF. “He praised their flight as a ‘righteous act of courage,’ while threatening to gerrymander Illinois even further in potential retaliation — not for Illinois voters’ benefit, but as part of a political power struggle with Republicans on the national stage.”

Pritzker was confronted about his state’s congressional maps on Tuesday during his appearance on late-night host Stephen Colbert’s show.

Colbert likened Illinois District 13, which stretches across seven counties, to a scorpion’s stinger. Pritzker responded by joking that a kindergarten class drew the map and referred to it as his “independent commission.”

The Illinois governor had previously pledged to veto any partisan maps, and even had campaigned on amending the state’s constitution to create an independent redistricting commission.

“We should amend the constitution to create an independent commission to draw legislative maps, and I have supported this effort for years,” then-gubernatorial candidate Pritzker said in a 2018 questionnaire. “In the meantime, I would urge Democrats and Republicans to agree to an independent commission to handle creating a new legislative map.”

Six years later, those reforms have yet to materialize.

“Governor Pritzker never misses an opportunity to be an opportunist,” Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie told the DCNF. “Texas is responding to states like Illinois, which went first in the remap sweepstakes. Pritzker was uninterested in preserving any Illinoisan’s right to fair representation when he broke a campaign promise and signed the most gerrymandered map in the nation. If he is serious about reform, House Republicans have legislation awaiting action from Democrats.”

Pritzker’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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