The Illinois General Assembly wrapped up its fall veto session early Friday morning, extending several hours past midnight to finish votes on several major bills that will now head to Gov. JB Pritzker for his approval.
The headlining item was passage of a $1.5 billion revenue package to avert a Chicago area public transit fiscal cliff, which includes significant reforms to the governance structures and oversight of the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace.
But finalizing a transit bailout was only part of the work that state legislators completed late last week, as several other bills and provisions passed out of both chambers. Here’s the RoundTable’s recap of those items, and how they’ll affect Evanston and other surrounding communities.
Transit package to eliminate parking minimums
Besides the revenues and reforms that captured most of the attention, the transit bill also incorporates the People Over Parking Act, which targets vehicle parking requirements for developments in local zoning codes. A previous version of the act was introduced earlier in the year, alongside other statewide zoning bills supported by an ad hoc housing advisory committee convened by Pritzker last year, though none of the others made it across the finish line during the veto session.
The adopted act will prohibit all cities, including “home rule” cities like Evanston, from imposing parking minimums on all developments (except hotels and other “transient lodging”) that are close to public transit starting June 1, 2026. More specifically, parking minimums will be banned:
- Within half a mile of train stations and bus stops with multiple routes that combined have headways of 15 minutes or less during morning and afternoon rush-hour periods; and
- Within one-eighth mile, or 660 feet, of any street with bus route headways of 15 minutes or less during rush hour.
Although official maps showing affected areas have not been produced yet at time of writing, Evanston will likely lose parking minimums for most of its land under one or both of the two exclusion zones described above. Mapping just the areas around Evanston’s CTA and Metra train stations shows that nearly all land east of Ridge Avenue will be excluded from parking minimums, and some land west of Ridge will be excluded as well due to proximity to qualifying bus routes.
Locally, officials have been discussing parking requirements in the city’s zoning code for years. Former Councilmember Devon Reid (8th Ward) submitted a referral to remove parking minimums entirely in February 2024, which was eventually rolled into the initial draft of a new zoning code created through Envision Evanston 2045.
That draft zoning code was fully scrapped by the end of February 2025, and with no new drafting happening until after a new comprehensive plan is adopted, it appears the state’s act will take effect before a new local zoning code can be adopted.
New restrictions and right to sue federal immigration agents
After months of raids and detainments by federal immigration agents in Chicagoland under “Operation Midway Blitz,” Illinois lawmakers passed House Bill 1312, a package of changes to state laws on civil immigration enforcement.
These updates include creating a new right to sue agents over alleged violations of constitutional rights, banning all civil arrests of people attending hearings at state courthouses and requiring hospitals, child care facilities and public colleges and universities to adopt formal policies for handling attempts by federal agents to request someone’s immigration status or detain someone on their premises.
These provisions are part of a policy platform advanced by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which celebrated the bill’s passage as taking “meaningful steps forward in protecting immigrant communities.” State Sen. Karina Villa (25th District) also mentioned it at Saturday’s Evanston community vigil outside the Prieto Community Center, saying state lawmakers “stood up, and we fought back” by voting to pass it.
Energy bill creates battery incentive, lifts nuclear ban
Legislators also wrapped up months of negotiations on energy policy by adopting Senate Bill 25, dubbed the “Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.” This act broadly aims to invest more in local power generation and supply, especially in light of rising power bills due to the growing demand of artificial intelligence and data centers.
The biggest part of the bill is a new incentive program for building battery storage projects that serve renewable sources like wind and solar, which will be paid for by a new fee added to Illinois power bills starting in 2030. Advocates and lawmakers say these new projects will help mitigate rising electricity prices in the long run, and other changes like new energy efficiency requirements for utility companies are aimed at reducing overall energy demand.
Another major change is a full repeal of the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power projects, which has been in place since 1987. The ban was partially lifted in 2023 when legislation was approved to allow small modular reactors to be built, but the latest bill fully repeals the ban for projects of all sizes. More than half of lllinois’ current power generation comes from the state’s six existing nuclear plants, and Illinois produces the most power through nuclear of any state in the country.
Medical aid in dying legalized
Following up on work done earlier this year, legislators passed Senate Bill 1950 to legalize medical aid in dying, making Illinois the 12th state to allow patients diagnosed with terminal illnesses to request a prescription for medication that will end their life sooner. Two of Evanston’s legislators, State Rep. Robyn Gabel (18th District) and State Sen. Laura Fine (9th District), were sponsors of the bill and gave statements of support to the RoundTable when it was under consideration earlier this year.
Patients must be given a diagnosis of six months or less to live to request a prescription, and they must make the request themselves and be found mentally capable of doing so. Individual health care providers and pharmacists cannot be required to participate in the process.
The General Assembly will reconvene for its next regular session in mid-January.
Springfield roundup: Parking minimums, immigration and more from veto session is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston’s most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.
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November 3, 2025 at 01:57AM
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