Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Hillside) said Wednesday the proposed constitutional amendment on redistricting his chamber passed to the Senate is a safeguard against possible U.S. Supreme Court sabotage of the Voting Rights Act. Supporters of the amendment, which passed 74-38, say if the Trump administration and the nation’s highest court leaves Illinois alone, there will be no changes.

The amendment lists five priorities in legislative redistricting: 1) substantially equal in population; 2) allow all citizens the opportunity to participate and to elect representatives of their choice on account of race; 3) to create, where practical, racial coalition of influence districts; 4) contiguity; 5) compactness. Republicans say the supermajority party could double down on gerrymandering by ignoring those last two.

“The Constitution will still require legislative districts to be compact,” said one of Welch’s lieutenants, State Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago). “The only change here is that that requirement is not as important as the requirement to preserve minority representation.”

“I see a body that looks like Illinois,” Welch said of the House, “and it’s because of that diversity. It’s because of those maps that courts have said are constitutional.”

State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria) said the legislature may have racial and gender diversity, but there’s one kind of diversity it lacks: the political kind.

“The political composition in this room in no way reflects the realities of the state of Illinois,” Spain said. “This is what gerrymandering is.”

Democrats enjoy supermajorities in both chambers: 78-40 in the House and 40-19 in the Senate.