Stephen Colbert Confronts Illinois Gov With ‘Crazy’ District Map of His Own State
Stephen Colbert confronted Illinois Governor JB Pritzker with a map of the already “crazy” districting in his own state as the governor railed that “everything’s on the table” when it comes to gerrymandering because of Texas Republicans’ redistricting plans.
Pritzker’s comments came amid growing Democratic anger over Texas Republicans’ plan to redraw their congressional map to flip five Democrat-held seats. Many Texas Dems fled the state to Illinois to stall the plan from being voted through, drawing Pritzker into the fight. Civil arrest warrants were issued in Texas for the Democrats but they carry no weight in Illinois.
On Tuesday’s The Late Show, however, Pritzker didn’t blink when asked whether Illinois might respond with its own aggressive redraw in kind.
“It’s possible,” he said. “And, as I’ve said, everything’s on the table.”
Criticizing the move, he continued: “Look, we’ve got to fight fire with fire. They’ve frankly tossed the rulebook out. And they’re just acting in an unconstitutional fashion.”
Pulling a prop from under the table, Colbert confronted him with a map of Illinois districts, including one he joked looked like “the stinger on a scorpion.”
“If you are considering doing a little more redrawing in Illinois, you already have some crazy districts in Illinois,” the host mocked, showing the audience: “Take a look at this. Look at 17 here. It does that, then it comes up here and it sneaks around there and goes all the way up here, and then goes right over there like that. And look at this one, kind of goes whoop up there. It’s like the stinger on a scorpion down here.”
“Is this common for all states to do?” he asked.
“We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let them decide,” Pritzker dodged.
“That’s the nonpartisan group that does this?” Colbert played along.
“That’s our independent commission, yeah,” the governor said.
“So because all states to a certain extent do this, why is what Texas doing particularly egregious in this case?” Colbert pressed.
Pritzker explained: “Every 10 years we do a census in this country and right after the census we redraw district in every state. But what the Republicans are trying to do in the Texas Republicans frankly at the behest of Donald Trump are doing it mid-decade. That is extraordinarily rare.”
The host agreed: “That’s a good point because I think he literally called them or wrote them and said, ‘Hey, I need five seats, go redraw this.'”
Watch above via CBS.
