Springfield, IL—The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA), an Illinois civil-rights advocacy organization—in an effort to persuade the Illinois House of Representatives Redistricting Committee for greater representation of the LGBT community—has appeared at three public hearings held by said committee.
At the hearings, TCRA outlined a proposal highlighting that LGBT data is omitted from the U.S. Census and, as a result, is not among the demographic minorities considered when drawing the legislative maps.
In the first appearance, Jacob Meister, president of the governing board, laid the foundation of the argument by explaining that through independent studies, the LGBT population in Illinois is estimated at more than 1 million. He went on to explain that one of the chief missions of TCRA, through its non-partisan Voter Project, is to identify LGBT and allied voters in Illinois.
Meister spoke about traveling as a U.S. Senate candidate and identifying voters throughout the state, especially in areas traditionally not seen as regions where LGBT populations live.
"Being the first openly gay Senate candidate in Illinois, I heard from many LGBT people as I traveled the state," said Meister. "These conversations made me realize that LGBT Illinoisans live all across the state and are in every community. Having an openly gay person representing them was a new idea to most and certainly one that empowered them to bring their issues front and center."
At the hearing held in Chicago April 24, TCRA Executive Director Anthony Martinez expanded on TCRA's proposal by focusing on the current LGBT representation in the Illinois General Assembly and the need to ensure that representation was maintained. Martinez additionally highlighted the lack of data that was available from the Census and that population data about the LGBT community is not reliable as a means for inclusion in the redistricting process.
"Based on estimation, the LGBT population in Illinois numbers over 1 million residents," he said. "It is clear that because the LGBT community can only point to three Representatives that we are underrepresented in the General Assembly. It is clear that the new map must maintain the current districts that are lead by openly gay or lesbian legislators, or we lose the already sparse representation that we have secured."
At the last meeting in Springfield, before the entire committee, TCRA Political Director Lowell Jaffe concluded by presenting maps of the state that show LGBT population density based on TCRA's own data and census numbers that represented 125,000 registered LGBT and allied voters in the state of Illinois.
"Unlike most minorities, the LGBT community is not represented in the Census data that is used for this very purpose, to redraw the districts," said Jaffe. "Presenting the maps has shown that the LGBT community is throughout the entire state. We are a part of every minority community, every city, town and neighborhood."
