Greetings –
I hope you are well! If you are observing Easter of Passover this weekend, I hope you have a happy celebration among family and friends! It is a time for forgiveness and renewal.
Friday of last week was the deadline for members of the House of Representatives to pass legislation originating in the House onto the Senate for consideration. At the deadline, 379 bills passed the House. Once again, the number of bills called for a vote and passed were starkly along partisan lines. As Democrats control the chamber, only 65 Republican bills, or 17.2%, were passed compared to 314 Democrat bills, or 82.8%. It’s a continuing reminder of the heavy hand of one-party rule in the state of Illinois that continues to silence dissenting voices.
As I’ve noted before, the additional frustration we’ve seen in Springfield this year is the attempt by many Democrats to ignore the real problems Illinois is facing. Instead, they’d much rather debate national issues that we cannot impact or change. All the while, Illinoisans are being ignored as they implore us to make their lives better. Nowhere is this reality more true than the ongoing failures at state agencies like DCFS and DHS, where vulnerable children and those with disabilities continue to suffer. The Federal Department of Justice will be auditing several State-Operated Developmental Centers (SODC) for ongoing reports of abuse and neglect.
I want to bring up one item for you to consider and for me to acknowledge as you read the following update. I’ve gotten feedback over the past couple of newsletters that a small but vocal few feel I’m “beating up on Democrats” and I should work more with Democrats to fix the state instead of blaming them. Republicans are in the super minority in both the Illinois House and Senate due to severely gerrymandered political maps. As a result, Democrats to a large extent, are the ones who determine what happens, often regardless of the impact on folks who object to some of their bills. Everything I have put in this and prior newsletters is a reflection of how things I see in the Capitol and this state actually occur. One of the most frequent questions I get is “How did that pass???” and often the answer is “With Democrat-only votes.” Thankfully, after every newsletter the feedback saying “Thank you for the unvarnished look” and “We appreciate your candidness” vastly outweigh those that complain I’m picking on Democrats.
Below are additional updates from deadline week and some other major news. As always, thank you for reading!
House Bill Deadline, State Agencies, Senior Drivers & More
Stop the banter, let’s get to work on IL issues & end the chaos at state agencies.
At a press conference at the State Capitol last week, I joined colleagues to question the misplaced priorities of Illinois Democrats and urged action to address chaos at state agencies. Agencies under Gov. Pritzker’s leadership have been riddled with controversy with reports of abuse, neglect, and improper procedures.
Gov. Pritzker has been in office for six years, and in that time, he and Democrats in the legislature have increased the annual state budget from $39 billion to $54 billion. Yet, we still have core agencies – DCFS, DHS – that are failing our most vulnerable.
There is a 5 to 7-year backlog for adults with disabilities to be granted services from the PUNS list. That represents 16,000 individual adults with disabilities. Additionally, there are over 50,000 individuals with disabilities whose primary caregiver is OVER 60 years old. These are the issues we should be working on. Rather, my peers continue to wallow in fretting over national headlines. It is often beyond frustrating that DCFS and the children who are in their care are left to some of the circumstances they are in. That is NOT an indictment of the front-line workers who do these jobs, it speaks to the support they don’t have to execute their sacred promise to these kids.
It’s time for the Governor and Democrats to stop the banter. Our very job as lawmakers is to answer to our constituents, to be their voice, and to advocate for their needs in the legislature. Out of that also comes our responsibility to protect our state’s most vulnerable citizens. However, that obligation continues to be ignored. Read More Here.
National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
April marks the observance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, an annual campaign that aims to raise awareness of the devastating consequences of child abuse and neglect. This month-long initiative highlights the importance of families and communities working together to safeguard the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of children across the nation. Each one of us can play a vital role in preventing severe neglect, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by being proactive and informed.
To that end, I am the primary sponsor of HB 2521, which requires a fingerprint background check for officials in organized school athletics in Illinois. There were multiple reports of sports officials who had background issues that would have been caught and kept away from kids had a fingerprint (instead of a quicker background) background check been done. There is a widely available report from the Chicago Public Schools Office of Inspector General highlighting this gap. It was also identified in the Make Safe Task Force I was a part of recently. This bill, linked here, is a truly bipartisan effort in alignment with my continued efforts to protect those who have suffered sexual and domestic abuse. Read More Here.
Bill to end onerous requirement on senior drivers passes House.
As I’ve said before, the data is clear that older drivers are actually some of the safest drivers on the road and are involved in fewer fatal crashes than any other age group. Yet, Illinois is the only state in the nation that requires drivers 75 and older to retake a driving test as a condition of renewing their driver’s license. Through House Bill 1226, we are removing that onerous requirement on seniors and adding a process that enables family members to report medical conditions that could impair someone’s ability to safely operate a vehicle (current law already allows for doctors, police, state’s attorneys and judges to report on medical conditions). This is a simple fix that makes life easier for seniors and emphasizes a common-sense safety approach over an arbitrary requirement.
My original idea was so good that the Democrats “Put a brick on it” last year so they could reintroduce it this year and claim credit for its passage. For me, it’s not about credit for the idea, as I’ve said all along, this is an idea I got from a constituent in Huntley who came to our Town Hall. We still need to remove the final hurdle past age 87 and introduce a screening system that has ANYONE of ANY AGE subjected to more rigorous license renewal if there was a ticket, accident, or physical or mental condition that could affect the safe operation of a vehicle. Hopefully, we will get there soon.
I’m glad that, after all the hard work we put in last year, we’ve finally been able to get over the first hurdle of passing House Bill 1226 through the House. And it passed unanimously. Read More here.
Making the case for tax relief.
Last week, I joined colleagues at a press conference to again make the case for tax relief. Illinois’ tax burden and overregulation have driven people and businesses out of our state, contributing to higher unemployment and lost wages.
If our state had grown at the average rate of our neighbors between 2010 and 2020, we would have 722,000 more residents in the state today, according to an analysis by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. Of those 722,000 people, nearly 500,000 would be working and earning $26 billion in annual wages. Imagine what those extra household earnings and economic activity could do for our state and communities. Think about Illinois 20 years ago, back when people were moving here, neighborhoods were being built and businesses were opening. I want to, and I feel our obligation as leaders is to, return Illinois to the average growth rate by reducing hurdles to job creators and attracting people back to Illinois. We can do it with a few simple tweaks.
If the state is serious about digging out of our financial hole, ending the out-migration, and simply being AVERAGE – then tax relief and creating opportunities for economic growth are by far the most effective things we can do to achieve these goals. Read More Here.
State Supreme Court rejects gerrymandering lawsuit.
Last week, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected (voting along party lines) House Republicans’ lawsuit against Democrats’ gerrymandered legislative maps based on the laches doctrine, or a lack of timeliness. Even more frustrating in this decision is that it was the Court, not the defendants, who raised the laches defense, something Justice Overstreet showed clearly to be meritless in his strongly worded dissent.
This decision only stands to disenfranchise voters and allow Illinois’ Democratic majority to continue drawing gerrymandered districts. Remember, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, which assesses legislative maps around the country using several metrics, gave the current Illinois map a failing “F” grade. Read More Here.
Homeschool Act fails to advance in IL House.
The Homeschool Act would impose a variety of mandates on homeschooling families, some of which are highly intrusive. As amended, the Act would require each parent or guardian of a homeschooled pupil to submit a notification and data form to the public-school bureaucracy. If a registration form is not submitted for a school-age child, the child may be classified as a truant. Truancy imposes potential penalties, including criminal penalties, upon the allegedly truant student and his or her parents or guardians.
Homeschool families from across Illinois have mobilized in significant opposition to the Homeschool Act. In response to this opposition, the Democratic sponsor of the Homeschool Act threw out the old language of the bill and substituted the language of House Amendment #2 to HB 2827. The amended bill maintains intrusions into the lives of homeschooling families, and when the amendment was debated in a House committee last week, tens of thousands of witness slips were filed in opposition. Due to the public outcry from families and bipartisan opposition, the sponsor did not call the bill for a vote on the House floor before the April 11 third reading deadline for House bills.
Bill to shorten prison time, including violent offenders, fails.
In one of the stranger events of third reading deadline week, House Democrats failed to garner enough votes to pass a bill that would allow for the parole and resentencing of convicted criminals if they were under 21 years of age at the time of the offense. On its face, it may seem reasonable to grant review to convicted minors. However, this legislation wasn’t simply focused on non-violent or more minor offenses, it would also grant murderers and rapists the possibility of parole and resentencing. That would also mean victims could be compelled to face their abusers in court again years later.
Once the realities of the bill were made apparent during debate, thankfully, several Democrats joined Republicans in voting against this poorly thought-out bill. Read More Here.
I hope you’ve found this update helpful. I’m honored to serve you as your State Representative. As always, please feel welcome to call or e-mail me with any questions, concerns, or feedback on these or any other issues.
I want to leave you with an “ask” here at the end. There have been a handful of people who have passed away recently who were highly impactful for our area by being leaders in our communities through their businesses, schools, and community groups, and I’d ask you to reach out to any recent widows or widowers and see how they are doing. Their world has changed dramatically, and I was reminded recently that a phone call is sometimes all it takes to show the surviving spouse is not forgotten.
It has been a busy spring, and we are in the Capitol more weekdays this year than in the past. If you happen to find yourself traveling through Springfield, please let us know, and we will see if we can set aside some time to visit face to face.