Dean Vik Amar and Professor Jason Mazzone, both of the University of Illinois, have a two part series (one, two) at Justia’s “Verdict” on McConchie v. Illinois State Board of Elections, a challenge to Illinois’s redistricting plan. From the opening of the second piece:

In this—the second—installment in our series on McConchie v. Illinois State Board of Elections, in which Republican Minority Leaders in the Illinois General Assembly (in their official capacity and as registered voters) challenge in federal court the constitutionality of the apportionment of state legislative districts that the General Assembly and the Governor recently enacted, we focus on remedies. Our prior discussion flagged standing and ripeness hurdles the plaintiffs will need to overcome in order to get to the merits of their claim. And as to the merits themselves, we expressed doubts about whether the plaintiffs should and will prevail in their argument that because the Illinois legislature used a population survey rather than (traditionally) more reliable but not yet available decennial census results based on the 2020 national count, the enacted redistricting plan violates the one-person, one-vote requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Yet even if the federal courts were to agree that the plaintiffs have overcome the justiciability hurdles and that they have established a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, we are skeptical that it would be proper for the courts to grant the remedies the plaintiffs are seeking.