The new Chicago ward map garnered enough City Council votes to dodge a referendum, but some community organizations say it reflects the same old problems.
Chicago Ward Map
Chicago City Council members voted 43 to 7 to approve a new ward map this week. The approval came after a monthslong tug-of-war between the council’s Latino and Black Caucuses over the balance of wards. The approved map has 14 wards with a majority of Latino voters — one short of the 15 wards the Latino Caucus had demanded.
While the map set to take effect in time for the next round of municipal elections in 2023 has been the subject of more public scrutiny than any other revised map in Chicago’s history, it still allows incumbent alderpeople to pick their own voters and punish their enemies.
If approved at a special City Council meeting set for 11:30 a.m. Monday, the map will be the second major piece of legislation that would have failed to pass without the support of some of the City Council’s most progressive members.
Chicago city council members say that — after a lot of haggling — they have an agreement on a new ward map. This means there are likely 41 votes in council to confirm what the wards will look like for the next ten years, and it will not be put to the voters in a public election. But some good government groups have blasted the proposal as another typical backroom deal.
To avert the first ward map referendum since 1992, 41 alderpeople must agree on a map no later than May 19, the deadline for the June 28 primary election ballot to be finalized.
To avert the first ward map referendum since 1992, 41 alderpeople must agree on a map no later than May 19, the deadline for the June 28 primary election ballot to be finalized.
Leaders of the groups that successfully pushed Chicago elected leaders to support a map that redraws the 11th Ward to include a majority of Asian American voters warned members of the City Council that asking voters to decide the boundaries of the city’s 50 wards “fans the flames of racial division.”
Thirty-three alderpeople currently support the ward map backed by the Black Caucus — eight short of the votes needed to avert a referendum in June.
The map crafted by the Chicago Ward Advisory Redistricting Commission failed to win the support of a single alderperson after nearly a year of work.
The session failed to resolve the central issue at the heart of the debate that will determine the balance of political power between Black, Latino and Asian Chicagoans.
The meeting will include three members of the City Council’s Black Caucus, three members of the Latino Caucus and three other members of the City Council. Harris, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader, is a member of the Black Caucus.
City Council members have yet to redraw the city's ward maps. They’re contending with a controversial ordinance to go after street gangs’ profits. And, the city’s watchdog released two reports on a botched smokestack demolition and a wrongful police raid, while the city's without a permanent inspector general.
The likelihood that the June 28 primary election ballot will ask voters to decide what Chicago ward map should look like for the first time in 30 years increased this past week as the acrimony between the Black and Latino caucuses over the map escalated.
Any hope that a holiday break could reset the raging dispute over the map that will shape Chicago politics for the next decade and determine the balance of power between Black, Latino and Asian Chicagoans was extinguished Friday as members of the City Council clashed during the first of four public hearings scheduled this month.
Chicago alderpeople are at odds over redrawing the city’s ward map, a procedure that happens every 10 years to account for population changes. The biggest sticking point is the balance of power between Black and Latino Chicagoans.
