Will County Gazette

Veteran Illinois state Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) says everything he sees Democrats in Springfield doing now on the issue of map redistricting is opposite of how local government was intended to function.

“What's happening behind that door there is not democracy,” Batinick said during a May 6 news conference outiside a chamber door where Republican lawmakers say Democrats were working on redistricting. “You know who agrees with me? President Obama. I was in the legislature in 2016 ... he came and he gave his speech and the big part of it was talking about how gerrymandering is bad for the country, bad for the state.”

Batinick said he can recall talking to Obama about how ending gerrymandering was a bipartisan issue.

“I told him 'I will fully support you in anything we can do to end the gerrymandering process,'” he said. “I call on our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us, to join the former president and stop what's happening behind that door.”

Batinick is among Republican lawmakers accusing Democrats of meeting in secret to plan a strategy as the once-in-a decade task of redrawing district maps grows near.

The job of redistricting, usually based on U.S. Census figures, typically falls to the party in power, but with government data not expected to be available before a June 30 deadline this cycle largely because of COVID, Republican lawmakers are hoping to have more of a voice in the process this time around.