SPRINGFIELD — In an election-year General Assembly session where what won’t pass will likely be as telling as what might, Illinois lawmakers return to the Capitol facing a familiar but narrowing path: avoid politically radioactive fights, plug a more than $2 billion budget hole and sell voters on a single unifying theme Democrats are leaning on from Washington to Springfield — affordability.

With control of both chambers and the governor’s office, Democrats are anticipated to steer clear of sweeping, high-risk policy overhauls as they campaign for every House seat, a slate of Senate races, and Gov. JB Pritzker’s bid for a third term. Instead, legislative leaders are signaling major proposals — from health care and insurance regulation to energy policy and even how the state will entertain Chicago Bears stadium talks — will be filtered through a cost-of-living lens.

Hovering over it all is the fact that Illinois enters its new budget cycle on July 1 with a forecasted $2.2 billion shortfall and shrinking federal support from the Republican Trump administration. While Democrats say they are committed to balancing the budget without dramatic disruption, progressives inside the majority are pressing a familiar argument that the state should ask the wealthiest Illinoisans to pay more.

“I think everything’s going to come down around affordability issues. I think folks are concerned about their homeowners’ insurance, their car insurance,” House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat from Hillside, said last week at a City Club of Chicago luncheon. “Listen, everything’s about affordability and that’s going to be our focus.”

The message mirrors a broader national Democratic strategy ahead of the November midterm elections, one that seeks to frame rising prices — from groceries to insurance premiums — as a political failure of Republicans, including President Donald Trump and his congressional allies. In Illinois, it also provides a governing rationale for a session likely to be heavy on caution and light on bold departures, even as Democrats remain vocal in criticizing Trump and Republicans.

The General Assembly’s roughly four-and-a-half-month session is scheduled to end May 31, with lawmakers juggling legislative work alongside the March 17 primary election. Pritzker, a vocal Trump critic who has also floated a potential 2028 presidential run, will deliver his budget proposal in mid-February and set the tone for negotiations that legislative leaders acknowledge will be unusually tight.

The challenge is compounded by federal uncertainty. While Illinois has stabilized after years of fiscal distress — including ballooning pension liabilities and a bruising two-year budget impasse under former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner — the state remains dependent on Washington. That reliance is increasingly risky as Trump’s tax and spending cuts ripple through Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs, and as Republicans who comprise Illinois’ legislative superminority continue to criticize the governor and their colleagues across the aisle for excessive spending.

Democratic Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park described cost-of-living pressures as “an overriding theme” he hears from constituents.

“It’s health care, it’s housing, it’s insurance premiums, it’s utility bills,” Harmon said, adding that lawmakers are still developing proposals for the session. “I don’t know that there’s a silver bullet anyone’s devised yet.”

House Republican Leader Tony McCombie of Savanna on Thursday said she thinks 2026 “would be finally a good time for Democrats to bring Republicans into the room” given the midterm elections, but added the election doesn’t change much for Republicans who will continue to “expose and oppose bad policy.”

Senate Republican Leader John Curran of Downers Grove said his caucus wants to push for legislation that includes providing energy rebates and reducing the cost of medications — emphasizing in a statement how his caucus would be focused on “making life more affordable for Illinois families and businesses by advocating for policies to reduce costs and against the majority’s endless efforts to increase spending by raising taxes.”

The numbers underscore the difficulty. To close a deficit of more than $3 billion in the current fiscal year that ends June 30, Democrats last spring cut hundreds of millions of dollars in health care spending for non-U.S. citizens and approved more than $800 million in tax increases, including hikes on online sports betting, tobacco and vaping products. While the projected hole for the next budget is smaller, the state’s cushion is thinning as federal dollars recede.

A recent report from the bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability showed Illinois received $281 million from Washington in December — $83 million less than the same month a year earlier, excluding now-exhausted pandemic aid. An October analysis from Pritzker’s budget office warned that the spending cuts law that Trump approved July Fourth could reduce Medicaid funding to Illinois by $2.8 billion by fiscal year 2031, forcing the state to contribute an additional $1.7 billion to maintain coverage.

Pritzker’s budget office also projected added state costs for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the federal government shifts an additional 25% of administrative expenses to the state, amounting to $80 million annually, and imposes stricter penalties for payment errors, potentially adding more than $700 million in costs by the 2028 fiscal year.

All of those changes to SNAP and Medicaid could result in hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents losing those benefits, the budget office also said.

“My only personal priority is passing another responsible, balanced budget,” Harmon said. “That’s going to be challenging, not just because of economic conditions but also because of the lunacy coming out of Washington, where each morning brings us a potential new challenge.”

In part to brace for that volatility, Pritzker has ordered agencies to reserve up to 4% of their general funds in the current $55 billion budget and worked with lawmakers to create a special fund to backstop programs hit by federal cuts.

Even with modest revenue growth late last year — Illinois collected more than $230 million more in December than the same month the year before — Welch has renewed calls for a surcharge on millionaires, arguing the state still has a structural revenue problem. The idea has long been popular with progressive Democrats and has drawn voter support when floated in past ballot initiatives, though it remains politically fraught in an election year.

State Rep. Will Guzzardi, a Chicago Democrat and one of Welch’s budget negotiators, said rising health care costs and pension obligations leave little room to maneuver without new revenue.

“I think we need to invest in our schools and our communities and (lower) property taxes and (provide) social services for people, and we simply don’t have the capacity to do all that within the current budget constraints,” Guzzardi said. “I really believe that we have to grow the pie and we have to ask the wealthiest individuals and biggest corporations to pay their fair share so that we can invest in the services that people need.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson echoed that goal when he kicked off the new year by making a renewed pitch to state lawmakers for progressive revenue.

“My focus is going to be in Springfield, quite frankly as well, because there’s an appetite to generate more progressive revenue, particularly around a millionaires tax and other areas,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday when asked about his reelection aspirations, which he did not confirm or deny.

Johnson’s calls for Springfield to help him tax the rich are nothing new. But they have fallen on deaf ears throughout his term as the freshman mayor has struggled to build relationships in the state Capitol. Those frays were exacerbated by a proposal for a new partially taxpayer-funded Bears stadium that flopped, a constant stream of attacks on Pritzker from Johnson surrogates and a fledgling Springfield lobbying team.

Still, Johnson and his allies say the political temperature is better than ever for progressive revenue, even as threats persist that federal funding from the Trump administration is diminishing.

Even beyond the budget, affordability is shaping the menu. Though the U.S. House on Thursday passed a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, with the measure now headed to the Senate, lawmakers in Springfield are eyeing action on the issue as the ACA subsidies expired at the end of last year and pushed premiums higher for many families. State Rep. Dagmara Avelar, a Bolingbrook Democrat, said pressure could prompt legislation targeting costly hospital visits.

“We have a lot of families who are just one emergency away from bankruptcy,” she said.

Energy prices are another flashpoint. State officials have warned that surging electricity demand — driven in part by data centers and artificial intelligence — could lead to chronic shortages and higher bills within five years, especially in northeastern Illinois, and as the state prepares to close dozens of coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to improve air quality. Pritzker last week signed energy legislation backing the use of large-scale battery storage and helping make wind and solar power more effective, a move Democrats say will eventually lower costs but Republicans note will add surcharges to consumers’ bills.

Homeowners insurance has also become a political flashpoint after Bloomington-based State Farm announced rate increases of more than 27%, citing extreme weather and repair costs. While Pritzker and legislative leaders have called for stricter oversight of insurers, a proposal stalled last fall despite passing the Senate. A few weeks later, Pritzker renewed his call for legislation to establish a more stringent state oversight process, saying, “We don’t know if homeowners are being gouged, and that’s what it feels like.” The insurance industry has warned against what it calls overregulation, saying Illinois’ market remains competitive.

Not all issues fit neatly into the affordability frame.

Debate over the SAFE-T Act, the 2021 criminal justice overhaul that eliminated cash bail, could resurface after authorities say a man with an extensive criminal history set a woman on fire in an apparently unprovoked attack on a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train while he was out on electronic monitoring in a separate, aggravated battery case. Though the judge in that earlier case had the option of holding the suspect, Lawrence Reed, in custody, that fact didn’t stop detractors of the SAFE-T Act from decrying the law loudly enough for the Trump administration to take notice and threaten to deprive the CTA of federal funding if it didn’t improve its public safety measures.

Welch has signaled openness to tweaks, though specifics remain unclear.

Lawmakers may also revisit whether Illinois should allow autonomous vehicles as companies such as Waymo eye expansion. Safety, weather conditions and urban infrastructure remain unresolved concerns, according to state Sen. Cristina Castro of Elgin, who said she wants more data before advancing legislation.

“I have been in conversations with my colleagues about the possibility of bringing autonomous vehicle technology to Illinois, but, at this time, I have not filed legislation,” she said through a spokesperson. “Should I decide to file legislation on this issue, I want to ensure we have data that supports it can be done in a safe and reliable way.”

And then there’s the Bears. After years of lobbying for public incentives to build a new stadium in Arlington Heights, the team has hinted it could look to northwest Indiana. Pritzker and Democratic leaders have consistently said they’d reject taxpayer funding for a new stadium, and Welch made clear that stance is unlikely to change this spring.

“This is not to be insensitive to the Bears and their ownership but when these folks (Democratic state representatives) are out knocking on doors right now, they’re hearing people talk about the cost of prescription drugs, about the premiums of their health care insurance going up, grocery prices, rent,” Welch said at the City Club of Chicago. “They’re talking about things related to cost of living. I don’t know anyone that has knocked on a door and someone has said anything about the Chicago Bears.”

“And I think we have to stay focused on the things that people care about right now. And when folks say, ‘What’s your priorities going into the legislative session?’ We’re trying to bring down the cost of living,” he continued. “Talking about a brand-new Bears stadium when this one’s (renovated Soldier Field) not even 25 years old, that’s insensitive to what real people are going through right now.”

Transit is another issue that could bleed over from last year. After lawmakers approved landmark legislation in the fall following months of doomsday warnings about service cuts to Chicago-area transit, state Sen. Ram Villivalam, one of the key architects of that legislation, said at a City Club panel Wednesday that lawmakers would work on a trailer bill, though he wouldn’t specify what kind of tweaks they might be looking to make.

“We’re reviewing the law just like we would review any other law that’s passed that’s this major, and look to see if there’s any other enhancements or technical amendments that are needed,” the Chicago Democrat said.

Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin and Talia Soglin contributed.