Long-sought legislation that would accelerate the sealing of many criminal convictions from employers now sits on Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk, positioning Illinois to join roughly a dozen states that have adopted similar policies to help people pursue better jobs.

Advocates estimate as many as 1.7 million Illinoisans with past court cases stand to benefit from the so-called Clean Slate legislation, which the Democratic-led legislature pushed through the General Assembly in the final days of last month’s fall session.

The bill builds on Illinois’ existing system, which permits many records to be sealed but can take months or even a few years to do so. The legislation shifting to a more automatic process would represent another significant change to the state’s criminal justice system since a recent wave of historic laws passed, including the elimination of cash bail, new sentencing rules for people incarcerated at a young age and a pathway for people in prison with serious medical issues to seek release.

While many cases — such as murder, armed robbery, carjacking, residential burglary, sex offenses against minors, DUIs and reckless driving — will not be eligible for the automatic sealing, a few Republican lawmakers raised concerns about whether the legislation would actually promote rehabilitation, and they questioned the fairness of employers not knowing some job applicants’ criminal histories.

Still, for people who find themselves in situations like Floyd Stafford, the measure is a potential blessing.

After being convicted of felony drug possession in the late 2000s, Stafford went to college to earn two master’s degrees and worked in the community violence intervention field. Now 54, he’s trying to get the conviction sealed so he can pursue other job opportunities where employers might not be as understanding of people with criminal pasts as those in the community violence field.

Although he’s several months into his petition process, Stafford said that if Pritzker signs the Clean Slate legislation into law, such proceedings could be sped up for others and allow them to find their desired jobs much sooner than before.

“It’s just not enough to depend on the grace of others to overlook certain things that I’ve done. It’s more about, ‘Listen, I served my time.’ In my case, that was well over 15 years ago,” said Stafford, a board member for the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, one of the groups that pushed for the legislation in Illinois. “I want to pursue things outside of criminal justice reform, which puts me in a different space where there may be stakeholders who don’t necessarily get the idea of people serving their time and should not have to have these barriers over their head.”

Many convictions for drug and illegal gun possession, car theft, forgery and other lesser offenses make up a significant portion of the types of cases eligible for automatic sealing. Those cases can be sealed under the current state law through a petition. The main difference with the measure awaiting Pritzker’s signature is that the process of sealing those types of cases would become automatic.

The bill passed through the Illinois House by an 80-26 vote on the last day of veto session last month, and 39-17 in the Senate the day before. A couple of Republicans in each chamber joined the Democratic supermajorities in supporting the measure.

One of the bill’s main sponsors, Democratic state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth of Peoria, described the legislation as “a jobs bill” and a “yearslong effort to bring true employment reform to Illinois” for people who’ve been continuously deprived of work opportunities, housing and other necessities because of their pasts.

“These are moms. These are dads that are at our children’s school that we see every day. And many of them cannot work in health care. They can’t work at the city. They can’t work at the county. They can’t work at the school district,” Gordon-Booth said during the House floor debate. “And I don’t know about you, but a lot of our communities, those are the employers. Those are the economic engines that allow for people to take care of themselves and their families in our communities. And they have been shut off from those opportunities, oftentimes for mistakes that were made 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.”

Democratic state Sen. Elgie Sims, the main Senate sponsor of the bill, emphasized the rehabilitative aspect of the measure, which would help people with criminal convictions turn their lives around.

“If we’re going to fight for rehabilitation, we’re going to make it eligible for individuals to have an opportunity to have access,” said Sims, a Chicago Democrat. “And under this legislation, it would be the reality that individuals would not be locked into conditions or locked into their past actions.”

But Republican state Sen. Steve McClure, a former prosecutor from the Springfield area, said he remained concerned the bill wouldn’t promote those previously convicted of crimes to rehabilitate themselves and that he was worried the legislation would create situations in which convictions for financial exploitation would be automatically sealed and those individuals would be in a position to work with senior citizens in need.

“We’re talking about jobs. We’re talking about issues where someone would be in a situation where they could deal with vulnerable people,” McClure said during the bill’s debate in the Senate Criminal Law Committee. “And those positions will be filled by employers that no longer have access to information that could cause someone to be victimized. And that’s kind of where we’re going here with this.”

The Illinois State Police would determine what records are eligible for automatic sealing and notify circuit court clerks through a statewide e-filing system. The clerks would then seal the records in accordance with the timelines set out in the legislation and send notices to the arresting law enforcement agencies. The state police plans to begin developing its criminal history record systems by the middle of next year, though the systems won’t go live until Jan. 1, 2029.

Although convictions would be generally sealed from employers, law enforcement agencies and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would still have access to them, as would other public agencies in some instances through state police background checks.

But drug tests would be removed from the record-sealing process, another point of contention for those opposed to the Clean Slate bill.

“This legislation is not giving these people the opportunity to say, ‘I’m rehabilitated,’” McClure said of the absence of the drug test provision. “Why would you not want to give them the opportunity to show that they are rehabilitated with this requirement in the current legislation?”

GOP state Sen. Chapin Rose, a former Champaign County prosecutor, agreed, expressing his opposition during the full Senate debate over the removal of the drug test requirement for people with narcotics convictions.

“We’re not making things safer,” said Rose, of Mahomet. “At the end of the day, not having the negative drug drop proves nothing on who we’re putting back on the streets of Illinois.”

For Stafford and other proponents of Clean Slate, however, the drug test is another barrier for people trying to improve themselves, even if illegal drugs have been part of their past.

“For so long, with the war on drugs, individuals who use drugs are often demonized and cast out of society. And to me, that actually drives recidivism,” Stafford said. “I acknowledge individual choice and also being held responsible and accountable for the things you do. But … we’re talking about people who have already completed their sentences.”

Stafford said he started the petition process for his case around March. He retained a lawyer and had to pay a $400 fee to get started. He also had to pay a smaller fee for a copy of his rap sheet from the Chicago Police Department. He also had to pay to take a drug test. After it came back negative for illegal substances, Stafford was able to officially file the petition. He has a court date on the matter set for December.

Antonio Lightfoot, deputy director of the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, said the legislation would help people who can’t afford a lawyer or who navigate the petition process with little guidance, often forgetting key steps needed to complete it properly.

“My process only took a year. But I was one of the lucky ones. It’s not often I get to describe myself as a privileged individual. … I worked in the field, so I knew a fair amount about the process,” said Lightfoot, explaining how he got an old armed robbery conviction sealed a couple of years ago, which helped him obtain certain contracts as a photographer. “A lot of people don’t know they’re eligible, as well as people who don’t have the resources to get it done, because one resource that I mentioned that is probably the toughest is the attorney. I was working with attorneys who knew the process and I knew where to take it to and I knew what line to not get stuck in.”

The bottom line, Lightfoot said, is that record sealing can improve the life of someone previously incarcerated, but even more so if it’s done for them automatically without having to go through a laborious process.

“Usually people who come home from prison, parole … anything in their background (is) subjected to a certain workforce. Right? We see this, warehouses. We see this, fast food. Like, low-wage working. I mean, every job is a job with dignity, but jobs where folks don’t have an opportunity to advance and take care of their family in the way they want to,” Lightfoot said. “And what we see is when folks’ records are sealed, they get to go for those better jobs.”