Lawmakers return to Springfield Wednesday for another try at
wrapping up the spring session with a longer list of items on their plate for
this week than when they arrived last Tuesday for what many thought would be
the final week of session.
The largest piece of legislation and biggest requirement for
lawmakers to pass before adjourning for the spring is the state budget.
Internal disagreements among Democrats over pieces of the budget have forced
that vote to be pushed off to this week. The Wednesday through Friday schedule
for the week would require the Senate to pass the budget on Wednesday to move
it to the House for a first reading so the House can pass the budget on
Friday.
Aside from the budget, lawmakers amended several bills last
Friday with major pieces of legislation they hope to pass before the end of the
week.
Chicago school board maps
Lawmakers have released two drafts of possible school board
maps so far and neither received glowing reviews. Both were heavily criticized
by Hispanic residents in Chicago as well as some Chicago City Council members
for not including enough Hispanic-majority districts. Each draft created five
white-majority districts, seven Black-majority districts and five
Hispanic-majority districts.
Vanessa Espinoza from Kids First Chicago said lawmakers have
largely ignored public feedback.
“CPS parents understandably feel they have been disregarded
in their voices throughout this process, and now in your final actions as a
committee you have disrespected us by holding your final draft secret for the
past week, shutting down any further possibility of any public input before you
rush this through a vote at the last minute,” Espinoza said.
Some advocates have called for drawing a map that reflects
the demographics of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) as well as non-citizen
Hispanic residents. CPS data shows 46.5 percent of students are Hispanic, 35.8
percent are Black, and 11 percent are white. However, state and federal law
requires districts to reflect the demographics of the voting-eligible population.
Lawmakers face a July 1 deadline to pass maps for the
Chicago elected school board, but Democratic leaders have not given any
indication as to how the maps will be reflected in a bill before the end of
session or if there will be a third map drawn.
Cannabis reform
A new cannabis reform package sponsored by Rep. La Shawn
Ford (D-Chicago) emerged Friday afternoon. While the bill (SB1559) received
some criticism in committee for not focusing more on reforms to help more
minority owners get into the cannabis industry, the bill makes several changes
to the state’s cannabis regulations.
The bill would expand space limits for craft growers by
9,000 square feet, allow drive-thrus at dispensaries, lengthens extensions for
organizations with a dispensary license to find a permanent location, puts a
two-year moratorium on transportation licenses, and eliminates the requirement
that cannabis be transported in cars in odor-proof containers.
Ford told the committee he would be filing a new amendment
on the bill before it’s voted on. Once it passes the House, the bill would need
to go back to the Senate for a concurrence vote.
Elections package
Lawmakers are set to consider a bill with several election
reforms. SB2132 is sponsored by Rep. Katie Stuart (D-Edwardsville).
After much discussion this spring, the bill would establish
a task force to explore how ranked-choice voting can be implemented in Illinois
and make recommendations for any changes to the state’s election procedures to
ensure election authorities have the proper systems for reading ranked-choice
ballots. The bill sets a goal of the 2028 presidential primary election as the
state’s first ranked-choice voting contest. No other races on the ballot in
that election would have ranked-choice voting.
The bill also aims to make constitutional amendments more
prominent on ballots by requiring it to be the first thing listed on voters’ ballots
and requiring the amendment be on the same ballot as other contests rather than
on a separate ballot.
Other changes in the bill include allowing 16-year-olds to
pre-register to vote, allowing 17-year-olds to circulate petitions if they will
be 18 by the general election, removing a requirement that campaigns list any
donors responsible for 33 percent or more of the campaign’s funds as a
“sponsoring entity” and makes the November 5, 2024 general election day a state
holiday.
The bill would also undo an appointment made by former
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in her final days in office. The bill would ban
Chicago mayors from making appointments to the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition
Authority within 45 days of the end of their term and the bill would make that
policy retroactive to April 1. Just days before leaving office, Lightfoot
appointed her deputy mayor for economic development Samir Mayekar to the
board.
Red-light camera ethics bill
After multiple scandals including some involving state
lawmakers, the General Assembly is moving a bill that cracks down on some of
the ethics issues and other problems that have arisen from red-light
cameras.
Under HB3903 led by Sen. Laura Murphy (D-Des Plaines),
automated traffic systems like red-light cameras and speed cameras would be
subjected to new regulations that largely target ethical questions raised by
various incidents of corruption and aggressive ticketing by the devices. The
bill would require studies of cameras, ban government employees in
municipalities from working for a traffic camera company, ban the companies
from contributing to political campaigns, and allow the Illinois Department of
Transportation to revoke approval for a camera involved in a corruption scheme.
Multiple public officials have become wrapped up in scandals
with red-light cameras. Most recently Sen. Emil Jones III (D-Chicago) was
charged with taking a bribe from SafeSpeed, the company at the center of many
of the scandals, in exchange for killing a bill that would have required a
study of automated traffic cameras.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Friday, including
with Jones’ support, and now awaits a concurrence vote in the House.
BIPA reform
A bill surfaced on Friday that would make some changes to
the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). HB3811 by Sen. Bill
Cunningham (D-Chicago) raises the fee for businesses violating BIPA from $1,000
per offense to $1,500 per offense and clarifies that an offense only occurs the
first time a person’s biometric information is obtained through a specific
method.
However, business groups that have called for an overhaul to
BIPA said at a news conference Friday the bill makes the state’s law worse
because it increases the penalty and does not require parties in class action
lawsuits to prove they’ve been harmed by giving a business their biometric
data.
Business leaders were also unhappy to see the amendment
because they thought there had been an agreement on a possible bill.
“Several people up here today have negotiated in very good
faith this spring to have reasonable reform to go after some of the very
outrageous judgements that we see, honestly,” Illinois Railroad Association
President Tim Butler said Friday. “And we thought we were there. What we see in
this amendment that was, again, filed late [Thursday] night, is the opposite of
that.”
The bill was supposed to be called for a vote in the Senate
Executive Committee Friday, but it was held back for more discussions.