SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — Lawmakers are moving hundreds of bills ahead of a big deadline this week.
Friday is the third reading deadline, which requires that bills to make it out of their original chamber, or else they can’t move forward. The subjects could still come back later under different bill numbers.
One of the most controversial bills in the Capitol this year has yet to get a vote on the House floor, but a new amendment did pass out of committee this week. The bill would introduce first-of-their-kind regulations on homeschooling in Illinois. Currently, Illinois has next to no regulations around homeschooling.
This bill would require children who are homeschooled to be registered with the state, and would move homeschoolers under the same truancy guidelines as public school students in the state.
Bill sponsor Rep. Terra Costa Howard (D-Glen Ellyn) said bill puts the state in line with dozens of other states with similar regulations.
"Thirty-eight states actually have regulations. So Illinois is an outlier. So as we did more research about this, we realized that the fact that Illinois had no regulations, we needed to do something," she said.
The bill has seen massive pushback from homeschooling families and school choice advocates. Thousands have signed on in opposition to the bill, and have shown up to the Capitol to speak out against it. Many view it as an overreach.
"Our children have been entrusted to us to choose what is good for their educational paths, to know our children, to understand them," Leslie Lovin, a homeschool parent from Springfield said. "And this bill reaches in and is questioning whether we can lead them, asking us to present documentation of curriculum and things that I just think is unnecessary at this point."
The bill passed out of committee on partisan lines.
Medical Aid in Dying bill sees movement
A bill to allow terminally ill people to seek medical aid in dying passed out of committee on Wednesday. If signed into a law, a person given only months to live could seek out a prescription that would allow them to choose to die before their condition could kill them.
There are a long list of barriers in place that would make sure only terminally ill patients have access to this prescription. The person must have multiple doctors say they only have six or less months to live. They also must have the mental capacity to make the decision themselves to ask for it. No family members can request it, and advance directives can not be given.
The whole process has been referred to as assisted suicide, but advocates for this policy take issue with that term.
"This is very, very limited in who has access to it. Just because somebody has a disability or because of age or because of depression, they don’t have access to it," Khadine Bennett with the ACLU of Illinois said. "And there are lots of safeguards in place because we want this to be a choice. So we don’t want somebody to be coerced into taking this kind of care if they don’t want to."
Religious organizations, including the Catholic Diocese has taken issue with the state considering the policy, saying it violates the pro-life stance of the church.
"The church says that we we believe and want to respect human life from the moment of conception," Springfield Catholic Diocese Bishop Thomas Paprocki said at a March for Life Rally last month. "We recognize that that God is the author of life, and God is the one who decides when we die. We don’t decide ourselves when we die."
The bill is waiting for a vote in the Senate.
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April 10, 2025 at 04:55PM
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