In bitter Chicago ward remap fight, a new alliance: The Latino Caucus and a community-led activist group
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As they prepare for the possibility that voters will decide Chicago’s new ward boundaries, Latino aldermen have teamed up with a progressive group on a proposed map.
The news comes as Black and Latino City Council members, who are fighting over the ward design, can’t even agree on how many Latino-majority wards were created in the last remap a decade ago.
Without that basic point of understanding in negotiations, an agreement on a new map becomes much more difficult and a referendum more likely.
The so-called People’s Map was unveiled last summer by the CHANGE Illinois Action Fund and activists who turned to a panel of community representatives to set the lines of Chicago’s 50 wards. It was a bid to take backroom politics out of the decennial process. But now, they will now join with Latino aldermen and others in the highly political process of trying to push their version of the map to victory.
As part of the agreement to work with that group, the Latino Caucus and its allies said Wednesday they’ve tweaked their “Coalition Map” to meet some of the People’s Map’s priorities.
The negotiated map now keeps the Englewood neighborhood within two wards, instead of three.
It keeps the Chicago Avenue corridor on the West Side within the same ward as the South Austin neighborhood. And it reconfigures the Latino Caucus ward containing the Woodlawn neighborhood to also include Washington Park.
Latino Caucus Chair Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, said the agreement between the groups “marks a turning point in our effort to bring more transparency and accountability to the mapping process.”
“We’re proud to have the CHANGE Illinois Action Fund’s endorsement and collaboration as we work together to put forward a map that’s reflective of hundreds of hours of community input, follows the census data, and fairly represents all of Chicago’s communities,” Villegas said in a statement.
But Black Caucus Chair Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, said the two groups’ map would “disenfranchise Black voters and grossly reduce gains the Black community has made in Chicago.”
“For example, they completely deconstruct the entire West Side of Chicago, diluting Black voices in historic communities,” Ervin said in a statement. “The majority of the City Council stands firm in the map we’ve created that increases Latino wards, maintains Chicago’s Black vote in City Hall and creates our city’s first Asian American ward.”
The People’s Map enjoys little City Council support, and the collaboration likely won’t move the needle much in helping the Latino Caucus build on the 15 aldermen backing their proposed map.
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But if at least 41 council members fail to agree on a single map, and the ward question instead goes to Chicago voters in a referendum on the June 28 primary election ballot, the People’s Map imprimatur could prove helpful.
Black Caucus map backers on the council likely would rely on their superior numbers in a referendum campaign, counting on the 33 aldermen who’ve endorsed that plan to make the case to voters within their wards and get them to the polls.
The Latino Caucus and others supporting their map might pursue more of a citywide strategy, trying to convince groups of voters across Chicago their map plan is more fair.
Having the People’s Map group in their corner in the referendum campaign might help Latino aldermen make inroads with progressive voters and others concerned with getting the politics out of map design.
And that referendum is looking likelier, as negotiations between aldermen have mostly ground to a halt and the two sides are arguing over basic facts in the current map.
Both the Latino and Black caucuses have formed political committees in recent weeks that they could use to raise money to spend in the campaign fight.
The proposed Black Caucus map that the council Rules Committee has endorsed creates 16 Black-majority wards, 14 Latino wards and an additional ward with a Black plurality.
The proposed Latino map has 16 Black-majority wards and 15 Latino-majority wards following 2020 U.S. census data showing Chicago’s Latino population climbed, and they overtook Blacks as the city’s second largest racial and ethnic group as the Black population continued to fall. Backers of both maps say the maps would create the city’s first Asian American-majority ward.
During a late January negotiating session, Latino Caucus members showed data they said indicated they already have 14 majority Latino wards in the map that was designed following the 2010 U.S. census. Black Caucus members insisted the Latino Caucus only got 13 Latino wards in the last remap deal, meaning the Black Caucus plan for the new map would increase that total by one ward.
Rules Committee Chair Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th, a member of the Black Caucus, pushed back on the Latino Caucus saying there are now 14 wards with Latino majorities.
“They’re making it up,” Harris said. “They had 13 wards in 2010, and they’ve actually fallen to 12 since then. I don’t know what numbers they’re looking at now, what data they’re using. They’ve set up their own parallel map process and we haven’t been able to see what they’re basing it on.”
Villegas countered that Latinos are simply seeking fair representation.
“It’s not theirs to give us a certain number of wards. The numbers are what they are, and we are following those numbers,” Villegas said. “Our map follows those numbers. I don’t think there’s a way forward in negotiations unless they want to make some adjustments. Otherwise, let the voters decide.”
Twitter @_johnbyrne
