By Jenna Schweikert, Nikoel Hytrek, Brenden Moore, & Ben Szalinski
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com
The Illinois House passed 264 bills out of committee this week ahead of Friday’s deadline, kicking the legislative session into high gear with two months to go before adjournment.
While the committee passage of bills marks early progress, most bill sponsors said they’re still working on amendments before their measures head to the full chambers for a vote. All bills will need approval from the House, Senate, and governor to become law.
Social Media Safety Act
One such measure would place new regulations on social media companies. But like many other bills advanced by House committees this week, the bill is expected to see more changes before being considered for a full vote.
House Bill 5511, the Children’s Social Media Safety Act, would require social media companies to confirm a user’s age through the device’s operating system, prohibit companies from sending nighttime notifications to users under 18, establish default privacy settings protecting a minor user’s location data and profile information, and allow more parental controls.
Supporters say the ultimate goal is to prevent children from consuming an addictive social media feed — and its advancement came the same day a New Mexico jury found that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, knowingly harmed children’s health. The company was fined $375 million.
In Illinois, the bill passed a House judiciary committee Wednesday on a partisan 13-7 vote.
“We’ve been a little bit too late to the game to talk seriously about how do we protect children’s mental health and children’s safety online,” said bill sponsor Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, D-Glenview. “These conversations I think have been taking place in every household in America.”
Cell phone ban
A House education committee unanimously approved the latest version of a bill that would require school boards to prohibit public school students from using their cellphones in the classroom.
As amended, Senate Bill 2427 would require Illinois school districts to adopt policies by the 2027-2028 school year banning the use of wireless communication devices like cellphones, tablets, laptops and gaming devices during school time.
The prohibition would be bell-to-bell for elementary and middle school students, but the legislation leaves discretion for school districts to allow high school students to use their devices during lunch and passing periods.
The bill also includes carve-outs for students with medical needs, who are caregivers for family members and who need their phone for English translation services. School officials can also permit device use if it’s for educational purposes.
“We know, as we’ve discussed many times, that the use of cell phones is causing a great distraction,” said State Rep. Michelle Mussman, D-Schaumburg, the bill’s sponsor. “It’s an academic distraction, it adds to student anxiety, it contributes to bullying, and we really believe that all the research is indicating that students are much better off and more well focused and balanced when they have time away from their cellphones.”
School cellphone bans have become a rare area of bipartisan agreement in recent years, with more than 30 states banning or limiting their use. Pritzker called for the policy change in Illinois during his 2025 State of the State address. A version of the legislation passed unanimously out of the Illinois Senate last April but wasn’t called in the House.
Many school districts already have cellphone bans on the books. These districts would be able to keep their existing policy through 2030-2031 school year, after which they would have to adopt a policy conforming with the state’s requirements.
Four-year degrees
The House Executive Committee unanimously OK’d an amended version of legislation authorizing Illinois community colleges to offer four-year bachelor’s degree programs in high-demand fields — another Pritzker initiative.
House Bill 5319, sponsored by State Rep. Tracy Katz Muhl, D-Northbrook, would allow community colleges to offer bachelor’s degree programs in select areas, provided the school’s board of trustees can demonstrate the program would help fill an “unmet workforce need” in the area the school serves, and that the school has sufficient resources, expertise and student interest to sustain the program.
Tuition and fees per credit hour for the third and fourth years would not be allowed to exceed 150% of the tuition and fees of lower-division course work.
The goal of the legislation is to make programs more affordable and accessible while addressing local workforce needs.
The measure, also a top legislative priority of Pritzker’s last session, stalled in May amid opposition from the state’s four-year universities, which feared that the new programs might undercut similar programs they offer.
Under the amended bill, community colleges would have to first collaborate with four-year institutions to determine if a partnership can address the workforce need. It also contains provisions meant to avoid the creation of duplicative programs.
Katz Muhl told the committee that she won’t run the bill until she’s certain everyone’s on the same page. But, she doesn’t anticipate any additional changes.
Abortion fund
The House Human Services Committee voted 8-4 to advance legislation that would create a state grant program to pay for abortions for uninsured and underinsured women.
The Affordable Care Act requires insurers that cover abortions beyond the limited circumstances allowed by the federal government under the Hyde Amendment to collect at least $1 per person per month. These funds can only be used to cover abortions, which has resulted in many insurance companies accumulating large sums they can’t fully use.
Under House Bill 5408, sponsored by State Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, insurance companies offering plans on the state’s exchange would have to annually report to the Illinois Department of Insurance how much money is in these separate accounts, how much they spent during the year and remit 90% of remaining funds to a state-controlled abortion access fund.
California and Maryland have passed similar legislation. The bill is an initiative of Pritzker’s office.
Rideshare unionization
Rideshare drivers would be able right to unionize under House Bill 4743, sponsored by Rep. Yolonda Morris, D-Chicago. It passed the House Executive Committee with a partisan vote of 8-4.
“This is really life-changing legislation for these workers. … It sets a standard for the entire industry,” said Genie Kastrup, Service Employees International Union Local 1 president. “It creates a framework for workers to be able to join the union. It also gives drivers the power to select who that union is.”
But Morris said she’s working on a compromise amendment to the bill. The Illinois Labor Relations Board and Illinois Department of Labor had concerns about provisions involving a charge on rides that would go towards grants for union members.
An identical version in the Senate had a subject matter hearing on March 10 but was not voted out of committee before the Senate deadline.
Composting as burial option
The House Energy and Environment Committee passed a bill to allow composting of human remains as a burial option.
The Natural Organic Reduction Regulation Act, introduced by Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, would grant cemeteries, crematories and other funeral service providers permission to operate facilities and equipment to compost human remains. It also establishes rules around the practice.
“What we are trying to do is give the people of Illinois the freedom to have the burial they choose, the funeral that they choose,” Canty said. “We find that deeply respectful.”
Canty committed to hold the bill and return to the committee with a “substantive amendment” to address concerns about regulation and liability. Some Democratic committee members hung their support for the bill on the promise it would be amended.
The bill passed the House in the previous General Assembly with three Republicans joining 60 Democrats in support, but it was not taken up in the Senate.
David Goebel of the Illinois Cemetery & Funeral Home Association spoke against the bill, highlighting philosophical concerns and impracticalities like how long it takes to compost a human body, whether that time would cause a backlog, and how to transport the resulting soil.
“Our association members uniformly feel this process lacks the dignity traditionally afforded to the dead,” he said, though he acknowledged other people have different opinions.
The bill passed the committee 18-9, on partisan basis.
Prison Mail
House Bill 4235 would prohibit the Department of Corrections from charging inmates and their correspondents more than the U.S. Postal Service rate for mail and mail scanning services. It passed a House judiciary committee unanimously.
The bill’s approval comes months after a separate legislative committee allowed new rules permitting the department to scan and digitize mail as it seeks to crackdown on drugs and other substances finding their way into state prisons. The rule makes some exceptions for photographs, books and legal mail.
But some lawmakers don’t think that rule or the bill, sponsored by Rep. Rita Mayfield, D-Waukegan, will solve the contraband issue.
“We know that everywhere that they’ve done this, contraband is still coming into these facilities,” Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, said. “This is not the answer. This is some company making money on the backs of the people that we are incarcerating.”
In many circumstances, the exact source of the contraband has been elusive, but physical mail has been largely blamed.
“The introduction of contraband into a facility can be multicausal,” Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, said. “Just because you cut off one cause doesn’t mean there aren’t other causes. And just because the other causes occur doesn’t mean that we start the one cause that we stopped.”
School foods
House Bill 5507 would ban “ultraprocessed” foods in schools. The bill passed out of a public health committee on a partisan 6-2 vote.
Bill sponsor, Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, said she plans to bring an amendment to more clearly define “ultraprocessed foods” and move the implementation of the bill from the Department of Public Health to the Illinois State Board of Education.
“This bill does not make immediate changes, but it creates a multi-year timeline that includes rulemaking, reporting and training before any restrictions take effect,” Harper said. “We all know that diet-related illness, obesity and other health issues are tied to food quality, and schools should be part of the solution, but we also want to make sure that implementation is practical.”
The bill would require schools to begin removing ultraprocessed foods by July 1, 2029, and finish phasing out by July 1, 2032.
Juvenile trial fitness
House Bill 5270 would create a new evaluation to determine if juveniles are fit for trial. Bill sponsor Rep. Justin Slaughter, D-Orland Park, said current state law evaluates child and adults the same way on if they are fit to stand trial.
“This one size fits all approach fails to recognize the natural limitations in functional, social, adaptive, and intellectual abilities that are inherent to our youth,” he said.
Juveniles would be evaluated on factors such as traumatic stress, substance abuse and relative immaturity. Slaughter said the bill is partially driven by concerns that president Donald Trump wants Washington, D.C., residents as young as 14 to be charged as adults for crimes. The bill passed out of committee on a partisan 10-5 vote.
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