Illinois Senate Halts Redistricting Amendment After Supreme Court Strikes Down Voting Rights Act Provision

Illinois Senate Halts Redistricting Amendment After Supreme Court Strikes Down Voting Rights Act Provision

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers have abandoned a constitutional amendment aimed at protecting majority-minority districts after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling significantly weakened federal voting rights protections.

Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, announced Wednesday that the proposed amendment will not advance this legislative session. Legal experts will first review the Supreme Court decision before Illinois considers its next move, Harmon said.

"We want to spend a little bit of time unpacking the Supreme Court decision to make sure we get it right and protect the voting rights of Illinois residents," Harmon told Capitol News Illinois. "It's much better and much more important to get this correct than to do it quickly. The worst thing that would have happened is if we rushed and there were unintended consequences that undermine people's voting rights."

The matter faces a May 3 deadline for constitutional amendments that would appear on the November ballot, meaning the redistricting proposal will likely wait until at least 2028.

Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana in a 6-3 decision. Justice Samuel Alito called the map "an unconstitutional gerrymander" and found it relied too heavily on race.

The ruling reversed the legal standard for voting rights cases. Before Wednesday's decision, plaintiffs only had to show that maps dilute a minority group's voting strength. The new standard requires proof of specific intent to discriminate based on race rather than just the effects of redistricting.

David Becker, founder and executive editor of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the decision "radical."

"When I woke up this morning, we had a functional Voting Rights Act," Becker said during a media briefing. "And unfortunately, I can't say that anymore."

Illinois Democrats Condemn Decision

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker described the ruling as an "abomination" and an attack on a "crown jewel of our democracy."

"We're not going to stand for it in Illinois. We're going to push back, we have options for pushing back. And that is under discussion with the legislature," Pritzker said.

Former President Barack Obama called the decision "a crushing blow to our democracy."

"Effectively, it guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of 'partisanship' rather than explicit 'racial bias,'" Obama said in a statement.

Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said the ruling "highlights how much the court would frown upon race being a predominant factor in drawing districts."

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch, D-Hillside, said the Supreme Court decision addressed "the very gerrymandering efforts the Democrats are hoping to codify into Illinois law with this Constitutional Amendment," according to the Illinois Freedom Caucus.

The Proposed Amendment

The Illinois constitutional amendment would have established a priority list for redistricting factors. The proposal passed the Illinois House on April 22 in a 74-38 vote along party lines.

Under the amendment, lawmakers would have been required to consider factors in order of priority:

• Districts equal in population
• Equal opportunity regardless of race
• Creation of racial coalition or influence districts
• Contiguous districts
• Compact districts

Currently, the Illinois constitution requires districts to be contiguous, compact and equal in population, with none being more important than the other.

The amendment would have inserted a Voting Rights Act provision into the state constitution to specifically direct lawmakers to consider race in drawing district lines. The Voting Rights Act provision has long been interpreted as a ban on splitting large minority groups into multiple legislative districts to dilute their voting power.

Political Context

The amendment push comes one year after state Republicans unsuccessfully sued to challenge the state General Assembly map. The Illinois Supreme Court's Democratic majority ruled in April 2025 that the plaintiffs waited too long to contest the maps drawn in 2021, but did not address arguments of unconstitutional gerrymandering.

Senate Republican Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said moving forward on the amendment would have been a step backward.

"We still have a gerrymandering problem in Illinois. Voters are being disenfranchised by the hyper-partisan mapmaking process that Democrats continue to employ every 10 years," Curran said.

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch said the people of Illinois "deserve a legislature that looks like them. They deserve Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Koreans, Vietnamese. They deserve Muslims in the legislature, women leaders."

State Maps and Future Remap

Despite the ruling, Governor Pritzker expressed confidence in Illinois' current congressional maps.

"I'm sure there will be people who try to attack it, but the reality is, if you read through the Supreme Court decision, I'm told that it validates the maps that are already in place, and of course, we'll be looking at a new remap in Illinois in 2031," Pritzker said.

New congressional maps are not currently in General Assembly Democrats' plans. Illinois is scheduled for its next statewide redistricting in 2031, following the 2030 census.

Nationwide Impact

The Supreme Court ruling is likely to impact elections in 2028 and beyond, since many filing deadlines for this year's elections have passed in states including Illinois.

The decision gives Republican states an opening to eliminate Black- and Latino-majority districts that typically vote more Democratic.

Illinois Senate President Don Harmon said he expects the amendment to be revisited in a future legislative session after legal experts fully analyze the Supreme Court decision.

"Illinois will not go back. We will not look the other way and call it equity. We will dissect this decision, find a path forward and continue to protect the rights of all Illinoisans," Harmon said in a press release. "I would ask for patience and time for our state's top legal experts to work through this. The last thing we want is to act in haste and risk unintended consequences down the road. Too much is at stake for too many."