Lawmakers in Springfield will be looking to come to an agreement on a number of major decisions that could bring several new laws to the state, influencing everything from artificial intelligence to education to property values to a possible new Bears stadium and more.
The legislative session ends on May 31, and while the $56 billion budget proposed by Gov. JB Pritzker is the main decision being tackled, several bills are also on the table.
The deadline will arrive at 11:59 p.m. Sunday, the Constitutionally mandated end of the spring legislative session in the state. But lawmakers have been known to blow past that deadline.
Here’s a look at some of the big items being discussed:
Bears stadium
The drawn-out and highly anticipated decision about the Bears stadium project is at the top of the list for lawmakers to decide this session.
With the Bears considering sites in both Arlington Heights and northwest Indiana, Illinois officials are working to get a deal in place to keep the team in Illinois.
Currently being debated is a deal that would lock in property taxes for the team at a site in suburban Arlington Heights, but they’ve run into myriad obstacles during that process.
The bill is known as a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) bill, designed to allow the Bears to negotiate a locked-in property tax rate with Cook County and Arlington Heights officials at the stadium site.
The Bears have said that such an agreement is an absolute must if they are going to construct a stadium at the site, but many lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have raised significant concerns. Chicago lawmakers have questioned whether the Bears should be incentivized to leave Chicago, which they’ve called home since the early 1920s.
Those lawmakers have questions over what would happen to Soldier Field, with the Chicago Park District estimating that a renovation project costing more than $600 million would be required to turn the stadium into a music-specific venue on the lakefront to make up for lost revenue with the team leaving the city.
If no agreement is reached by the spring deadline, a special session of the legislature could be called, but the threshold for bill passage rises from a simple majority to a three-fifths majority under the Illinois Constitution. That would require 71 votes for a bill to pass in the House and 36 in the Senate.
In addition to the PILOT bill, the Bears are also seeking legislation that would free up infrastructure funding to rebuild roads and transit corridors around the Arlington Heights site, with some estimates pegging the amount of money the team is seeking at around $850 million. Some suburban mayors have criticized the Bears for not fulfilling an obligation to publish the results of a traffic study on impacts of a stadium on surrounding areas, and that’s been another hiccup in talks over the project.
AI and data centers
The AI bills are part of a massive package of legislation comprised of multiple bills, with state Democrats aiming to place curbs on the industry amid inaction at the federal level. Those efforts have drawn some criticism from AI companies, but Illinois lawmakers say the moves are necessary to keep residents, especially children, safe.
Of the eight bills being weighed by lawmakers, at least one is already headed to the desk of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. That bill, Senate Bill 315, requires large AI developers to provide independent, third-party reports explaining how they plan to mitigate any catastrophic risks their users could face.
It would also require companies to provide transparency reports, and to report any safety-related incidents that occur to users of the technology.
Pritzker has praised the bill, and he has indicated that he plans to sign it.
But other bills are still on the docket in Springfield.
That includes Senate Bill 316, which will require AI companies to implement technology to detect suicidal ideation or self-harm within prompts generated by users, and to direct those individuals to crisis services providers like the 988-hotline.
Senate Bill 317 requires companies that utilize live chats to disclose to consumers whether they are interacting with a real person, or if they’re interacting with an AI interface.
Consumers are also the focus of Senate Bill 340, which will require companies to allow consumers to opt out of having their data used for targeted advertisements, or to opt-out of their data being sold to third parties.
Finally, consumers could also be impacted by Senate Bill 318, which will work to implement safeguards against AI-powered bots purchasing large quantities of tickets to concerts and sporting events, and will prohibit ticket resale companies from falsely implying they are affiliated with an artist, team or venue.
The BUILD Act
Illinois is short roughly 142,000 housing units and will need to build over 225,000 units in five years to keep up with growing demand, according to Pritzker’s office.
To help with that shortage, Pritzker introduced the Building Up Illinois Developments, or BUILD, plan as part of his “State of the State” address in February.
Instead of leaving zoning regulations up to local communities, the package of bills would make a series of changes that would affect housing statewide, including allowing small apartment buildings in residential areas and smaller second homes, like backyard cottages and granny flats, on lots that already have single-family homes.
The governor’s office sees the legislation as a way to create more starter homes and cut red tape so developers can build faster. But many suburban mayors have registered against the bills, in large part because they think zoning decisions should be left up to their individual towns and cities.
But some suburban mayors are concerned the legislation meant to expand affordable housing in Illinois could take away local control over what gets built and where.
Other changes would also be made to the the timelines in which housing permit reviews and inspections have to be conducted to prevent project delays. If deadlines are missed, third-party review would be allowed.
Another bill would limit how much parking cities in Illinois are allowed to require for new housing. For multifamily buildings, cities can require no more than half a parking space per unit.
Currently, buildings taller than three stories must have two separate exit stairways, but one of the bills would allow apartment buildings up to six stories to have a single exit stairway. The governor’s staff said that would expand the types of housing units that could be designed.
Cell phones in schools
Lawmakers are also still mulling legislation that would drastically limit the usage of cellphones by students in schools, though there are still concerns about how the law would be rolled out and how schools would enforce it.
Senate Bill 2427 would require schools to adopt policies to limit the use of cell phones during the school day.
So-called “bell-to-bell” policies would ban the use of phones from the first bell of the school day to the dismissal bell, according to the governor’s office. Schools would be required to provide storage options for students to help prevent use, loss or theft of their devices.
There would be exceptions to the measure, including cell phone use for managing health care, when a phone is required to fulfill an “Individualized Education Plan,” or for students who require phones to continue learning English. Medical exemptions for students who are caregivers for family members are also included in the legislation.
Schools would also be permitted to enact exceptions for students to access phones during their lunch period, or in the event of an emergency.
Numerous states have passed similar legislation, including Indiana, which banned students from using “wireless communication devices during instructional time.”
