"A Little Bit More Cooperative Than Expected" as General Assembly Pushes 600 Bills Out of Committee
Sen. Doris Turner (D-Springfield) and former Rep. Tim Butler testify in favor of legislation to create a commission to create a new state flag.
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“I think you saw it has been a little bit more cooperative than a lot of us expected,” one lobbyist told me last night. “Democrats also showed some self restraint.”
Going into the week, some 2,500 bills had been assigned to committees ahead of today’s deadline for action on substantive bills.
By our count, the House advanced 317 and the Senate has send 291 forward, mostly with unanimous votes and a lot of promises to amend bills on second reading.
In fact, only three House bills and no Senate bills failed in committee this week.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done on the bills that got through, but it was a sign of real restraint that we picked priorities this week,” a Democratic insider said yesterday. “It shows we’ve gotten the hang of this after all of the turnover the past few cycles.”
The vast majority of bills advanced were from Democrats (80% of bills assigned to committees in the House this week were Democrat bills, 73% of Senate bills this week had Democratic sponsors.)
“There are probably some pretty disappointed freshmen who wanted to change the world in their first session,” said one lobbyist. “But this is how it works in Springfield.”
Some legislation of note:
HB1533- Bans the declawing of cat’s toes. (Passed committee 5-4)
HB3530- Reduces the “in town” default speed limit from 30mph to 20 mph. (Passed committee 7-4)
HB3751- Allows non-citizens who are authorized to work in the United States to apply for police officer positions. (Passed committee 9-4)
SB1715- Mandates that all drinking fountains include bottle fillers beginning in 2026. (Passed committee 11-0)
SB1818- Creates the Illinois Flag Commission for the purpose of developing new State flag designs. (Passed committee 8-1)
SB1907- Requires each public college or university to make emergency contraception available for purchase through at least one vending machine located on each campus. (Passed committee 9-3)