SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers over the weekend teed up bills on issues ranging from clean energy and criminal justice to public health and child welfare for consideration before a lame-duck session ends on Tuesday and a new General Assembly is sworn in.
Among the measures before the Senate is a bill that would eliminate barriers for people wanting to change their names. It would allow people to file a petition to change their name if the person has lived in Illinois for three months, instead of six, at the time of a hearing on the name change.
The legislation also allows for the person requesting the name change to have a court file impounded if they “include a statement, verified under oath,” that the person believes publicly disclosing the name change would be “a hardship and have a negative impact on the person’s health or safety.”
The legislation also repeals requirements to publish a notice of a petition to change a name. State Rep. Kevin Olickal, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the bill in the House, called the publication provision “an archaic restriction” for those people who want to “live with safety and privacy.”
“We’ve heard stories of victims of domestic violence who will seek a waiver for that publication requirement and a judge will say, ‘well, your ex already knows where you live, so it doesn’t really matter,’” Olickal said. “And so, we’re forcing this person to … put out a public trail for where they could compromise their safety.”
During a Senate Executive Committee hearing on Sunday, Senate Republican leader John Curran of Downers Grove raised concern about whether people living in the United States illegally would be able to conceal their name change in Illinois.
“We should know who’s here. We should be able to track any change of name to evade something in their past or history. Here, we’re allowing that to be sealed,” said Curran. “That is going to be an easy path or avenue for someone here illegally to just kind of wipe clean their past, albeit their past is from outside of Illinois.”
State Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the legislation in the Senate, noted that a judge will have the ultimate say over whether court files regarding name changes should be impounded.
The bill passed 33-16 in the Senate with an amendment that now needs approval from the House, which earlier passed its own version of the measure.
The Senate on Sunday passed a bill intended to protect senior citizens in Illinois from abuse and neglect by prohibiting nursing homes from retaliating against a resident for registering complaints about the home to state officials.
Under the measure, nursing homes would have to notify residents each year of their rights regarding retaliation and the process to make complaints. Nursing home staff would also be required to undergo in-service training designed to prevent retaliatory action from taking place. The bill passed 48-2 and moved to the House.
Also under consideration is a bill that would require the Illinois Department of Corrections to post quarterly reports on the use of restrictive housing, or solitary confinement, on the agency’s website. The legislation would mandate IDOC to conduct regular audits of its data collection processes and collaborate with a research university to report the data.
The bill initially called for state officials to put restrictions on solitary confinement by preventing someone incarcerated from being placed there for more than 10 consecutive days or more than 10 days in any six-month period. The legislation also called for these individuals to have access to job assignments, educational classes, vocational classes, meals, recreation and other activities while out of their cells.
Olickal, who is also the House sponsor of this legislation, said before any limits are to be considered for solitary confinement, there needs to be sufficient data collected on that issue as well as on “the state of corrections” as a whole, which includes information about lockdowns.
“We understand that solitary confinement is a tool used by the Department of Corrections for the safety of other people in corrections,” Olickal said. “But we want to have a better picture of how it’s being utilized. Is it being abused? What are we missing as advocates? What are they missing as the folks that are in charge of corrections?”
A bill the House passed without any no votes last spring and that’s now before the Senate is intended to make it easier for law enforcement to respond to cases of Black youths who are reported missing or abducted. The measure would set up a statewide “Ebony Alert” notification system, supplementing the current Amber Alert notification system.
Rep. Marcus Evans, a Chicago Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said the measure was important to him as a Black man and concerns an issue that affects young Black women that he believes needs more attention.
“I think we need to really talk about the missing Black women and the concerns with what’s going on with these women and how it’s causing instability in Black families, which causes crime. Instability in the household causes crime. Pain causes crime,” Evans said outside the House floor on Sunday.
Under another measure, customers of Commonwealth Edison and Ameren would pay into a pool of money that the companies would use to expand energy efficiency.
“The utilities might be replacing something as simple as replacing old light bulbs with LEDs, or giving a grant to an industrial site to put a new conveyor belt in that would be more energy efficient,” said Sen. Bill Cunningham, a Chicago Democrat who is sponsoring the legislation.
The bill would also expand an existing law that Cunningham said does not account for a massive increase in energy usage from data centers.
“We knew it was going to go up. We thought it would be for electric vehicles and stuff like that. What has happened now is all these data centers and their demand for electricity has gone through the roof. So we have to kind of account for that,” Cunningham said.
This legislation would require the Illinois Commerce Commission to conduct a study and present it to the General Assembly by May 1 to inform legislation on the issue in the spring. “This is kind of an appetizer for bigger energy stuff we’ll do in the spring,” Cunningham said.
Legislation that would make it easier for family members of children in Illinois’ child welfare system to get licensed as foster parents is scheduled to go to the House for a final vote. About 60% of family members caring for children under the auspices of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services could gain access to additional financial help through provisions in the bill, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, a major proponent of the bill.
Gov. JB Pritzker has said he will sign the measure if it gets to his desk.
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