>> Illinois Republicans are behind a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to throw out the legislative district map thrown drawn by Democrats.

They say the map is an example of extreme partisan gerrymandering, which it renders it, which renders it that is unconstitutional.

Under state law.

Now, this map was initially challenged in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that partisan gerrymandering cases like this one should be decided by states.

Here now to talk about the legal challenges, state representative and assistant Republican leader.

Dan, you guessed via zoom from Springfield, where the legislature is in session.

We should note we did invite Democratic lawmakers to join us for the discussion, but they declined.

Is saying that House Republicans can't justify their party leaders, unlawful attempts to slash services, working families need to access healthcare, afford rent and put food on the table.

So they're choosing to distract people.

Fi relitigating the matter that courts decided years ago.

Representative, you guess the let's begin with that Democratic statement.

They're saying that this is just an attempt to distract from what President Trump is doing in Washington.

Your response?

>> Has nothing to do with that at all.

And thanks for having me tonight.

Appreciate it.

What this is about is about 3 people actions and whether the maps were drawn properly under the Illinois Constitution.

And there is no way we could have even started to put this together.

So the working on the time frame of what they're alleging because what the president is currently doing, this is ban a work week.

Something we've been working on for quite some time.

And expert was hired a detailed ranking complaint was drawn in filed with the court.

So there's no merit to that whatsoever.

>> You another Republican leaders have use really strong language to decry this map.

And this is of Illinois General Assembly state legislative districts, not congressional ones, calling it a manipulation of the system.

But what is legal argument here?

How is this legal?

>> to basis it.

We are challenging Didn't violate ceiling Constitution to bases.

One under Section 4 of the Illinois Constitution.

It says maps have to be contiguous of approximately equal population are all districts must be continues of approximately population and also compact.

It's violative that section of the Illinois Constitution as well as section 3 of the Constitution, which provides for all election shall be free and equal.

It violated on 2 grounds.

And what we have is evidence from our expert in detail in our complaint, which shows that it does violate both of those and I can go into more detail each of those.

If you like her.

>> We may soon it.

In terms of the compact argument, we saw a map and really you're just alleging that they're drawn to be sort of snake like instead of his square or a close together as possible.

example, eyes that.

>> Sure compactness is a divine term that was already defined actually by the Illinois Supreme Court 1981 Jason, called the strange case.

They ruled that a map in central Illinois.

They did that time was a part of Representative Taylor's district, not no relation to the current senator serving but represented Caylor was drawn in a way that wasn't compact and the narrows it was was by township.

Some of these maps pay no attention to township winds or any other mines.

And some of these districts in the current map and there are currently measurements used by national standards that have been used in other court cases throughout the United States where you can take a measure, the compactness of the district.

we've applied both those to our current maps and in 52 instances out of 118.

So 52 districts out of 118.

The current districts are the districts are current map measure compact than the one that was previously overturned.

In the strange case by the Illinois Supreme Court.

>> Now, this is a map that has been in law for nearly 4 years at past in 2021.

So why wait that long to bring this case?

>> So there were a few things that stood out to us in 2022.

With the elections.

What we had was I know election in which House Republicans actually received 70,000 more votes than Democrats.

And if you were to do it based those straight numbers alone, we would have had 60 seeds and they would have 58.

Yeah.

With the way the maps were drawn to the way it worked out is they have 78 House seats and we have 40 and it just appear that something was clearly wrong with that.

We have new leadership come in.

We had to work through a number of things, get up and running as well as you don't want to file something during the middle of an election cycle.

We complained rightfully so about the Democrats actions last election cycle when they change the rules of the game disallowing still waiting to be part of the process.

So we were going to follow the same process.

We are going to wait until election cycles over election cycles.

Now over we are filing and now there's still Each map only affects 5 election cycles.

There are still 3 left.

So we're not really wait.

We're just not early as we >> You're saying that Republicans could be in control of the Illinois House.

This is a state that is known to be quite flu where Kamala Harris, for example, easily won in the last presidential election.

>> Well, what I'm saying is based upon the 2022 election now, it didn't hold in 2024, but based on the 2022 election alone, not Republicans received 70,000 more votes 2024.

Democrats received more votes but not by a margin 2 to one.

I believe that most they may have had in Democrat House candidates received approximately 55% or slightly west of the vote.

And yet they still have a 2 to one majority in numbers just don't ever of Kuwait.

>> You know, there no guarantee that the Illinois Supreme Court is going to hear this case.

And I'm curious why you believe that they would given that 5 of the 7 justices on the state's high court.

Are Democrats.

>> Because it's the right thing to do.

clear that based on the evidence we are bringing forward as well the contained in our complaint.

you look at voters are being disenfranchised.

that's the main thing here.

The free and equal election cause is being violated as well.

Each voters boys does not count the same as the other, which is required by our constitution.

And because of that, because we need to protect the voters of Illinois.

No matter what our position is, we believe in are optimistic that the state Supreme Court will take it and do the right thing.

In this case, overturn these map to validate a monastic.

Those special master draw a fair map that complies with our constitution.

>> You know, the House Minority Leader Tony Macomb be has described.

This is saying that Democrats rigged the system to maintain the majorities and that this is cheating.

Has your party, however, lost credibility on that front, given that President Trump members of his cabinet, they are saying still wrongly that he won the election in 2020.

Is your party lost all credibility there?

>> I don't think one thing has anything to do with the other.

And in all honesty, it's not a party policy.

We're saying on behalf of Illinois voters.

Yes, it's coming from the Illinois House Republicans.

But this is just the Illinois House Republicans saying We did not take that position is a caucus that I'm aware of room about the prior election.

So I don't think there's any loss of credibility here whatsoever.

>> Well, we will leave it at that.

And we will be following as the state Supreme Court decides whether and how perhaps to deal with us.

We appreciate your joining us