Illinois lawmakers filed more than 7,500 bills this spring session, and 615 of them crossed the finish line. While most bills failed to escape legislative committees, there were some that got close to becoming reality. These are some of the bills that left a mark this session even though they never made it to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk.
Clean Slate
The Clean Slate Act stalled in the Illinois House, dimming the hopes of advocates who thought it might be called in the last hours of the Spring Session.
It would have automatically sealed records for criminal non-violent criminal convictions, though police and prosecutors would still see those convictions.
Automatic sealing would not be extended to felonies involving murder, domestic violence, sex crimes, animal cruelty, and drunk driving.
Toy Beasley is president of the McLean County Reentry Council, an organization dedicated to helping transition those have been in the prison system back to society.
Beasley had a history of substance abuse and prison service in the 1990s. This still affects him today, nearly 30 years later.
His criminal record made it harder for him to find work. He also can't own a gun, and background checks make it difficult for him even to do volunteer work.
That’s why he and his organization have tried to convince lawmakers that the Clean Slate Act will benefit more than just those whose records are sealed.
“If this bill passed, it would not only help those individuals, but it will reduce recidivism,” Beasley said. “For instance, if a person comes home from prison, and they know that three years after their parole probation that they are eligible to work in the medical field or work in an insurance industry, and they can make $30, $40, $50 an hour, they nine times out of 10, won't go back to prison.”
Democrat state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth of Peoria sponsored the Clean Slate Act. She said it would have helped transition people back into society.
"We don't want them to have to audition for their humanity. We don't want people to remain calcified in poverty. We want them to be able to take care of themselves, take care of their family, take care of their children or whatever life they want for themselves," Gordon-Booth said.
The Clean Slate Act had diverse support. Illinois State Police and the Illinois State's Attorneys Association joined criminal justice advocates and business groups to lobby the bill as it passed in Illinois House by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.
But not everybody was a fan of the bill, Woodford County State's Attorney Erik Gibson said it would be unfair for an employer to not know if someone they hired has a criminal history.
“Let's say somebody was convicted of an internal theft from their employer, and then they wait the requisite amount of years and don't have any issues, and then they go work for another employer,” Gibson said. “Doing a background check, they don't find that there was a theft from an employer, and then they end up hiring this person. The person does it again.”
Gibson also said automatic record sealing is unnecessary, at least in Woodford County, since he said the process takes less than three months.
Toy Beasley from the McLean County Reentry Council said critiques like these weren’t the issue, but a tight deadline to pass the bill was.
Gordon-Booth filed the bill in the last few days of the session, leaving little time for lawmakers to discuss. They spent the final hours of the spring session passing a budget.
Gordon-Booth said the bill was delayed because she took time to have conversations with Republican leaders and hear their concerns.
Beasly said he isn't giving up hope. He said there will be another push to pass the bill during a special session or the veto session in the fall.
“Boots on the ground, contacting senators again, especially the ones that we may think were questionable. And then, we also going to be targeting Republican senators, because we know we had some possibilities,” Beasley said.
Medical aid in dying
Another measure to not reach the finish line was the so-called Medical Aid in Dying mill. It would have allowed patients with a terminal illness of six months or less to live to be prescribed a drug that would help them die.
The bill received outcries from religious and disability groups throughout the session. Critics called it assisted suicide while advocates defended the bill for allowing patients to have more choice about their life.
The bill was never called in the Senate, after it passed in the House — over the objections of Republican Rep. Travis Weaver of Pekin.
"We talk so much about suicide prevention," Weaver said. "And so, when we passed that out of the House, I thought it was really a sad day in Illinois to know that we're talking out of both sides of our mouth. We're gonna say we're against suicide, but we're also gonna allow physician-assisted suicide."
Supporters of medical aid in dying pointed out that a patient must undergo mental health evaluations with at least two doctors to show that they are of sound mind.
Democrat Rep. Sharon Chung of Bloomington was among the supporters. She said the procedure provides patients with a terminal illness a decision that's rightfully theirs.
“It's just being able to give somebody that choice at the end of their life,” Chung said. “To be able to die with dignity and to be able to make again, it's a difficult choice, but I think just to be able to give somebody that option was really important.”
Other bills that stalled
A bill by Rep. Maurice West of Rockford would have banned school mascots depicting Native American imagery stalled.
In addition to banning imagery depicting feather headdresses, tomahawks and Native Americans, the proposal banned team names such as Redskins, Braves, Chiefs, Chieftains, Tribe. Supporters of the bill consider those depictions offensive.
The measure would have forced schools such as the Pontiac Indians and Deer-Creek Mackinaw Chiefs to drop their mascots.
The bill passed out of the House but was never called in the Senate.
Another bill that didn’t make it would have ended Illinois’s nuclear moratorium on large-scale nuclear reactors that has been in place since 1987.
After being attached to a large energy package, the bill was never called to a committee.
