Legislative Updates
Dear Neighbor,
This past Friday was "committee deadline" in the House. That means that any bills that move through the ordinary process needed to be heard and passed in committee in order to continue moving forward. (Of course, there are always exceptions to the "ordinary process"...).
Anyway, I wanted to highlight a few bills I'm especially proud of having passed in committee, and that I hope to get passed in the full House chamber in April. We'll be discussing all these bills and more at our legislative town hall in two weeks - scroll to the bottom for details!
HB 119: The Illinois Drug Reuse Opportunity Program (I-DROP)
Right now in Illinois, the only thing it's legal to do with unused pharmaceuticals is destroy them. That means that every year, tens of millions of dollars of safe, unexpired, unopened drugs get incinerated or, worse yet, flushed down the drain and into our waterways.
I-DROP will create a system whereby individuals, hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities can donate these drugs to charitable pharmacies and free clinics. Instead of going up in smoke, medicines will now go to the people who need them most.
HB 3665: The Joe Coleman Medical Release Act
COVID-19 has only underscored the crisis of medically infirm people in our carceral system. Hundreds if not thousands of medically disabled and terminally ill people languish in Illinois prisons, receiving extremely substandard care at enormous expense to the state.
Our bill would create a streamlined review process for people with these most serious illnesses to seek expedited release to spend their final days at home. Their release will remain discretionary, but it'll shortcut the current process of executive clemency, which can take years. For more on the bill, here's a great Sun-Times story about its namesake, Joe Coleman.
HB 116: Lifting the Ban on Rent Control
Illinois has a bizarre state law on the books in this area. It's called the Rent Control Preemption Act, but what it actually does is prevent any municipality in Illinois from passing any ordinance that regulates rent increases in any way. It's way, way more broad than just New York-style rent control.
This bill just repeals that preemption. It doesn't impose rent control anywhere, just says that cities are allowed to have this discussion. There's a lot of research out there about the effects of rent control, and I know it's a hotly debated topic. But I think there's no reasonable justification for the continued statewide gag order on regulating rent increases. I've been working on this issue for many years, and I'm thrilled that the bill has finally made it out of committee.
HB 117: Retirement savings for all
In 2015, my dear friend and now-Evanston mayor Daniel Biss passed a landmark program in the Illinois legislature called Secure Choice. It created a state-run automatic-deduction retirement savings program for the private sector. And it required that every business with 25 or more employees either offer those employees their own retirement savings plan (a 401k, IRA, etc.), or enroll them in Secure Choice.
Six years later, it's been a huge success. Over 80,000 people are enrolled, it's been easy as pie for the businesses, and the savers have tucked away over $50 million in retirement savings they otherwise never would have had. So HB 117 will expand the program to cover all businesses with five or more employees. It'll be an easy way for small businesses in our community to offer a great new benefit to their workers at no cost to them.
That's just a few of the sixteen bills I've passed so far! Others touch on a wide variety of subjects, from wage theft and union rights to DREAMers and cottage foodmakers. You can see the whole list here. Happy to answer questions about any of them! You can also always share your legislative feedback and ideas with me here.
More updates soon,
- Will
Don't miss our Legislative Town Hall on Monday, April 12!
Click on the flyer below for more information
