By Beth HundsdorferCapitol News Illinoisbhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com An Illinois law intended to help people with mental illness avoid confrontations with police had been on the books for three years when Sonya Massey was shot by a Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy.The Community Emergency Services and Supports Act, or CESSA, requires mental and behavioral
By Hannah MeiselCapitol News IllinoisHmeisel@Capitolnewsillinois.com Illinois governor JB Pritzker Wednesday, July 31 signed legislation aimed at curtailing the practice of “captive audience” meetings, a strategy businesses sometimes use to dissuade workers from forming a union. The law, dubbed the “Worker Freedom of Speech Act,” was a top priority this Spring
By Dilpreet Raju, Cole Longcor, & Alex AbbedutoCapitol News Illinoisnews@capitolnewsillinois.com Illinois lawmakers missed a self-imposed Friday deadline for passing a budget, but they had approved more than 250 bills last week as of Friday afternoon. Amid the flurry of legislation was a measure prohibiting State universities from admitting students based
Business groups have long sought changes to statute that’s led to hundreds of lawsuits By Hannah MeiselCapitol News Illinoishmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com Nearly a year ago, the Illinois Supreme Court asked the General Assembly to clarify a 15-year-old law that’s led to hundreds of lawsuits and several high-dollar settlements with companies alleged to
By Peter Hancok, Andrew Adams, & Jerry NowickiCapitol News Illinoisnews@capitolnewsillinois.com More than 300 new laws will take effect January 1, 2024 ranging from a ban on book bans to the regulation of “deepfake porn” and prohibitions on videoconferencing while driving. Thanks to a law signed in 2019, workers at the
By Nika Schoonover Ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft would be subject to the same level of liability as other forms of public transportation under a measure moving through the General Assembly. House Bill 2231 would classify ride-shares as “common carriers,” meaning the companies can be held liable, rather
By Hannah Meisel In the wake of a pair of recent decisions from the Illinois Supreme Court strengthening the State’s law governing how companies must treat employees’ and customers’ biometric data, longtime critics of the law see an opening to weaken it. But backers of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act
By Nika Schoonover Governor JB Pritzker Friday, Feb. 10 signed 15 bills into law, tackling policy areas from tourism to prison reform and making it easier for those previously convicted of felonies to legally change their names. The laws passed the General Assembly in their recently concluded lame duck legislative
By Peter Hancock Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Monday filed a petition asking an appellate court to vacate a temporary restraining order that was issued late Friday Jan. 20 to block enforcement of the State’s recently-passed assault weapons ban. Raoul’s office filed the petition in the 5th District Appellate Court
By Jerry Nowicki A Kankakee County judge ruled Wednesday, Dec. 28, that lawmakers overreached their constitutional authority in passing a measure to abolish cash bail in Illinois, while other provisions in the wide-ranging SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform were not affected by the ruling. The ruling by Judge Thomas W.
Elimination of cash bail one of many changes taking effect Jan. 1 By Peter Hancock By now, almost everyone in Illinois has heard that Jan. 1 will mark the beginning of a significant change in the state’s criminal justice system – the elimination of cash bail. It’s an issue that
By Peter Hancock Minimum wage workers in Illinois will see a boost in their hourly pay to $12 per hour starting January 1, 2022 while tenants in affordable housing units will be allowed to keep pets. Those are just some of the more than 300 new laws that take effect
Spearheaded by State representative Bárbara Hernández, D-Aurora, a package of new laws that will strengthen immigrant worker protections, address hate crimes, end local partnerships with federal immigration enforcement agencies, and establish a statewide immigrant task force were signed into law Monday by governor JB Pritzker. “Illinois needs to be a
By Peter Hancock Public high schools in Illinois soon will be required to teach students how to gain access and evaluate various kinds of news and social media they see online and elsewhere as part of their regular curriculum. That was among the 53 bills that governor JB Pritzker signed
By Sarah Mansur When a new year begins in Illinois, there typically are dozens if not hundreds of new laws going into effect. Not this year. Just like so many other things in this year, the legislative Spring session was stunted by COVID-19. Once the global pandemic reached Illinois in
By BEN ORNER In an effort to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution, a group of state lawmakers from both legislative chambers touted a series of bills Tuesday, Feb. 18 that would tax or ban single-use plastics and aim to boost recycling. The four proposals have the support of
By PETER HANCOCK A bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing strict new limits on health insurance policies that require patients to receive “prior authorization” from the company before they can receive certain treatments, tests or prescription drugs. It’s a common practice under most health plans, one originally intended to hold
By PETER HANCOCK A group of Illinois lawmakers Tuesday, Feb. 18 declined to block the Illinois State Police from implementing new administrative rules governing firearms dealers. Those rules were adopted on an emergency basis in January, nearly one year after Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker signed the Firearms Dealer License Certification
Click the image below to view a list of more than 250 new Illinois laws which have gone into effect in 2020.
Residents are invited to learn about new laws going into effect at an information session presented by State representative Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego, Thursday, Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Aurora Public Library, 555 S. Eola Road in Aurora. “This past year, we enacted a large number of new laws
