Fourth Ward resident Deanna Lesht spent nearly nine hours traveling to Springfield and back Wednesday, joining hundreds at the State Capitol to show support for legislation that would repeal a law requiring the state to divest public pension funds from companies that boycotted Israel.

State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid (D-Bridgeview) introduced the Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Protection Act in February 2025 to repeal SB 1761. The Illinois General Assembly unanimously passed the original bill in 2015 to target the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which protests Israel’s “regime of settler colonialism, apartheid, and occupation over the Palestinian people,” according to the BDS Movement website.

“Its existence limits the ability of people to use one of the tools we have for nonviolent protests, which is economic tools,” Lesht said. “To me, keeping it on the books is a restriction on our rights as citizens, our First Amendment rights.”

In 2015, then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the nation’s first anti-BDS law in what he called “an important first step in the fight against boycotts of Israel.”

Now, Rashid and others are pushing to repeal the law because it serves to “punish companies for engaging in peaceful political boycotts” and “ties pension funds to a blacklist that targets advocacy for Palestinian rights,” Rashid wrote in an April email blast.

“Settler attacks, home burnings, and ethnic cleansing operations continue to escalate in the West Bank and Gaza,” Rashid wrote in the email. “This is the context in which people are speaking out, and it is exactly why the right to engage in political boycotts matters right now.”

Local groups such as IfNotNow Chicago, Evanston for a Free Palestine and Chicago Area Peace Action have supported the repeal effort by lobbying in Springfield, calling legislators and encouraging people to complete witness slips.

Lisa Meyerson, a member of IfNotNow Chicago who is also involved with Evanston for a Free Palestine and Chicago Area Peace Action, went to Springfield with the Illinois Coalition for Human Rights to meet with legislators.

“When I went last year, there were not nearly as many people that had signed on, and it was really hard to meet with people and hard to educate,” Meyerson said. “Now, more and more people have been signed on for it, and I feel like the work is paying off.”

Mayor Daniel Biss, who voted in favor of the anti-BDS law when he was a state senator in 2015, recently voiced his support for the repeal effort.

While Biss said he opposes the global BDS movement — a Palestinian-led effort to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians — he wrote in a late April Substack post that this “isn’t the question.”

“Whether or not you believe in boycotting Israel or Israeli products from the occupied West Bank, or in boycotts in general, we should all be able to agree that our government must not be wielded to stop people from using their economic agency to advocate for their values,” Biss wrote in the post. 

While running against Biss to represent Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, progressive content creator Kat Abughazaleh posted a YouTube video criticizing anti-BDS laws and commending Rashid and others for the repeal effort.

She said anti-BDS laws require governments to create a “political blacklist” of people and companies that engage in BDS.

“I am saying all of this not as a Palestinian person but as a human being that cares a lot about civil rights,” Abughazaleh said. “This affects all of us. And it never stops here.”

The repeal effort has met opposition from organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.

The AJC has called the BDS movement antisemitic and wrote on its website that “BDS leadership seeks nothing less than the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.” On its website, the organization also accused BDS supporters of harassing public officials, academics, performers and business owners “simply because they are Jewish.”

The ADL website lists anti-BDS legislation as a “best practice” for combatting antisemitism.

Some Jewish activists dispute these claims about the BDS movement.

“That’s part of why, as a Jewish person, I like to speak up because early on, a lot of people felt afraid to,” Meyerson said. “And so I felt like I was helping make it more acceptable to speak out against the genocide in Gaza. I think it’s actually antisemitic to equate Jews with Israel together. I think we should be able to criticize any government.”

Proponents of the Illinois Human Rights Advocacy Protection Act are now pushing for a floor vote before the end of the legislative session on May 31.

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