{"id":2601652,"date":"2026-05-12T11:35:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/election-integrity-group-challenges-illinois-unconstitutional-racial-gerrymandering-law\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:39:54","slug":"election-integrity-group-challenges-illinois-unconstitutional-racial-gerrymandering-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/election-integrity-group-challenges-illinois-unconstitutional-racial-gerrymandering-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit: Illinois&#8217; Racial Gerrymandering Law Is &#8216;Unconstitutional&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Felection-integrity-group-challenges-illinois-unconstitutional-racial-gerrymandering-law%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2601652&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A new lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), on behalf of Illinois resident Jeanne Ives, challenges the Illinois Voting Rights Act (ILVRA), arguing it <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >unlawfully requires election maps<\/a> to prioritize race when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-slam-utah-supreme-court-gerrymandering-ruling-for-striking-very-heart-of-our-republic-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Republicans slam Utah Supreme ... gerrymandering ruling for \u2018striking very heart of our republic\u2019 - Washington Examiner\">drawing legislative districts<\/a>. The complaint cites the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision in *Louisiana v. Callais*, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-virginia-court-packing-plan-is-a-preview-of-what-theyll-do-to-scotus-after-retaking-power\/\" title=\"Dems&#039; VA ...-Packing Plan Will Be Used Against SCOTUS\">limited states\u2019 ability<\/a> to use race in redistricting.<\/p>\n<p>Ives claims the ILVRA\u2019s districting requirements-such as \u201ccrossover,\u201d \u201ccoalition,\u201d and \u201cinfluence\u201d districts-amount to a mandated use of racial factors as a primary purpose. She further argues Illinois\u2019 2021 redistricting law incorporated these racial criteria, pointing to statements from Gov. J.B. Pritzker that framed the maps as aligning with the Voting Rights Act by preserving minority voter clusters to reflect diversity in government.<\/p>\n<p>The case is filed in federal court in Illinois against Gov. Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and its executive director. Ives and PILF are asking the court to declare the ILVRA unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment and Section 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act, and to block Illinois from enforcing the ILVRA.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A key Illinois election law unlawfully requires the prioritization of race in drawing legislative districts, a new lawsuit alleges. The suit was brought in light of the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s recent <em>Louisiana v. Callais<\/em> decision stripping states\u2019 ability to use race in the redistricting process. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cStates may not use race to allocate power,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/press\/lawsuit-illinois-violates-fifteenth-amendment-voting-rights-act-after-callais-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams, whose group spearheaded the legal challenge. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/press\/lawsuit-illinois-violates-fifteenth-amendment-voting-rights-act-after-callais-decision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Announced<\/a> on Monday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1-Ives-v.-Pritzker-Complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuit<\/a> brought by PILF on behalf of Illinois resident Jeanne Ives contests that the state \u201chas districting criteria that violates the United States Constitution explicitly by elevating race as a primary purpose in legislative line drawing.\u201d Ives more specifically takes to task the Illinois Voting Rights Act (ILVRA), which she argues \u201cmandates the creation of racial districts in violation of [her] civil rights protected by the Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Section 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (\u2018Voting Rights Act\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Voting Rights Act forbids enforcing election procedures enacted with a racial intent or that results in a denial, or abridgment, of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cThe Illinois Voting Rights Act requires drawing district lines to preserve deliberate racial percentages, racial majorities, and the deliberate preservation of racial influence districts. This violates the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The suit was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois against Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Elections, and its executive director, Bernadette Matthews. <\/p>\n<p>The ILVRA specifically <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ilga.gov\/legislation\/ILCS\/details?MajorTopic=&#038;Chapter=&#038;ActName=Illinois%20Voting%20Rights%20Act%20of%202011.&#038;ActID=3298&#038;ChapterID=3&#038;SeqStart=&#038;&#038;ChapAct=FullText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">requires<\/a> that \u201cany redistricting plan pursuant to Article IV, Section 3 of the Illinois Constitution [Illinois Const., Art. IV, \u00a7 3], Legislative Districts and Representative Districts shall be drawn, subject to subsection (d) of this Section, to create crossover districts, coalition districts, or influence districts.\u201d The statute defines \u201ccrossover districts\u201d as those in which a \u201cracial minority or language minority constitutes less than a majority of the voting-age population but where this minority, at least potentially, is large enough to elect the candidate of its choice with help from voters who are members of the majority and who cross over to support the minority\u2019s preferred candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a \u201ccoalition district\u201d is defined by the ILVRA as \u201ca district where more than one group of racial minorities or language minorities may form a coalition to elect the candidate of the coalition\u2019s choice.\u201d Much like its namesake, an \u201cinfluence district\u201d is one in which \u201ca racial minority or language minority can influence the outcome of an election even if its preferred candidate cannot be elected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ives argues that these districts, as required under the ILVRA, violate the 15th Amendment because they mandate the \u201cexplicit consideration of race\u201d and\/or hold a \u201cbrazen impermissible racial purpose.\u201d Put another way, she says, \u201cThese statutory requirements make racial considerations a core purpose of all legislative line drawing in Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiff goes on to argue that Illinois\u2019 General Assembly Redistricting Act of 2021 \u2014 which redistricted \u201cthe legislative districts and representative districts for the state\u201d \u2014 \u201cincorporated racial criteria it used to redistrict.\u201d To bolster her claims, she references comments by Pritzker, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.illinois.gov\/news\/release.html?releaseid=23924\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> at the time, \u201cThese legislative maps align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will help ensure Illinois\u2019 diversity is reflected in the halls of government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefendant Pritzker\u2019s press release plowed further into unconstitutionality. It confirmed that \u2018the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 ensures redistricting plans are crafted in a way that preserves clusters of minority voters if they are of size or cohesion to exert collective electoral power. The maps signed into law today meet those requirements to adequately preserve minority representation and reflect the diversity of our state,&#8217;\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cThe press release explicitly adopted racial purposes behind redistricting guidelines, namely sorting and allocating political power on the basis of race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ives\u2019 suit references the Supreme Court\u2019s recent <em>Callais<\/em> decision, in which the 6-3 majority <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/04\/29\/supreme-court-smacks-down-rampant-race-based-gerrymandering\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">deemed<\/a> Louisiana\u2019s creation of a second majority-minority district to be an \u201cunconstitutional racial gerrymander.\u201d Justice Samuel Alito notably wrote how \u201cSection 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 \u2026 was designed to enforce the Constitution \u2014 not collide with it,\u201d and that \u201cCompliance with \u00a72 thus could not justify the State\u2019s use of race-based redistricting here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ives and PILF have asked the district court to issue a decision \u201c[d]eclaring that the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 violates the prohibitions on discriminatory purpose contained in the Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Section 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act.\u201d In doing so, they further requested that Illinois be enjoined from \u201cacting pursuant to\u201d the ILVRA. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illinois faces lawsuit alleging its voting law unlawfully prioritizes race in redistricting, citing *Louisiana v. Callais*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":2601653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Illinois.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43482,6413,4585,64415,32570],"class_list":["post-2601652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-constitutional-law","tag-illinois","tag-lawsuit","tag-racial-gerrymandering","tag-voting-rights"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Illinois.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601656,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601652\/revisions\/2601656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2601653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}