Under the Illinois Constitution, legislative districts must be “compact, contiguous, and substantially equal in population.” (IL Constitution Article 4.3a). 

The first of these requirements — compactness— is “almost universally recognized” as an appropriate anti-gerrymandering standard.” (Schrage v. State Board of Elections, 88 Ill 2d 87, 96 [1981]). 

The framers of the Illinois Constitution agreed. They noted that the compactness standard “reflect[s] the objective of improving legislative representation through seeking to insure that districts are not gerrymandered.” 6 RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS, SIXTH ILLINOIS CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 1352-53. They highlighted that, “[w]here no standards of this nature exist, there exists an open invitation to gerrymander.” Id. at 1353. 

The Illinois Supreme Court recognized these important principles in Shrage v. State Board of Elections in a compactness challenge to Representative District 89. 

The court found that visual examination of RD 89 was sufficient to show it was not “compact”. This examination “reveal[ed] a tortured, extremely long elongated form which is not compact in any sense.” Id. So, RD 89 “fai[ed] to meet the compactness standard as required by Article 4, Section 3a of the Illinois Constitution.” 

In addition to being bad policy, extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The Illinois Constitution requires that, “[a]ll elections shall be free and equal.” (IL Constitution Article 3.3) But under the Democrats redistricting plan, that is an impossibility. It also requires that all “Legislative Districts shall be compact.” (IL Constitution Article 4.3, A). But the enacted plan subordinates compactness to the partisan and incumbent-protection goals of the majority party. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the responsibility of ending extreme partisan gerrymandering to the states. Pennsylvania and, for a time, North Carolina, picked up the torch, striking down redistricting plans on the basis of identical or comparable constitutional provisions. 

Now, Illinois House Republicans are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to intercede and take up the fight, demonstrating that 52 of Illinois’ 118 State House districts are less compact than the district found to violate Illinois’s compactness standard in 1981.