Stories by Capitol News Illinois

Illinois is among the top 13 states seeing a rise in alpha-gal syndrome cases caused by a bite from the lone star tick, with residents living in southern Illinois at the highest risk.

Pasqal plans to invest $65 million into the new facility, which will house one of its quantum computers, and create at least 50 new full-time jobs. The company said the new computer will be the most powerful in the world by the time it is completed.

Most of the funding went to organizations outside the Chicago metro area. Nonprofit outlets received 30% of the money. The vast majority of news organizations in Illinois are for-profit.

Two of the most closely followed measures aim to protect the drinking water of a wide swath of central Illinois and boost the pension benefits for first responders in Chicago.

Senate Bill 1181 explicitly adds news media as an entity protected under the state’s Citizen Participation Act, which prohibits “strategic lawsuits against public participation.”

Lawmakers voted along party lines Saturday to pass House Bill 3363, which would create the “Office of State Public Defender” that would primarily be responsible for providing public defender offices around the state with more resources.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Patient and Provider Protection Act into law in 2023, after lawmakers passed it following the overturning of Roe v. Wade; it solidified access to abortion and gender-affirming care in Illinois and protects physicians who treat out-of-state youth.

The cost of tuition and fees for statewide undergraduates on average has risen 10% higher since FY09 than if it had simply kept pace with inflation. For graduate students, that discrepancy is 16%.

Illinois hosts one of the largest international student populations in the nation, ranking fifth, with more than 55,000 international students, according to a 2024 Open Doors report.

The House voted 67-39 to advance House Bill 3637, which would put new protections in state law to safeguard health care licenses for providers who offer abortion cares. It also guarantees continued access to abortion medication even if the medication’s approval is rescinded by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

IDPH’s funding for infectious disease prevention will see a “debilitating impact,” Director Sameer Vohra said in a statement. IDPH has been using the funding to track the spread of diseases, invest in lab upgrades, build up the public health workforce, and improve vaccination efforts.

Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site is a replica of the hamlet where Lincoln lived for six years during his early adulthood, and where he won his first elective office – though only after losing his first election.

A Senate committee passed a bill this week that would give specialized training on human trafficking and establish coordination across multiple state agencies and partners.

The measure, known as the Homeschool Act, would require families to notify their school districts when they decide to homeschool, and that parents or guardians who teach their kids at home have a high school diploma or equivalent.

State Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) is sponsoring two bills that would place restrictions on the use of AI in online therapy services as well as AI use in decision-making processes that determine a person’s health insurance coverage.

Under the new bill, families would be required to tell their school districts when they decide to homeschool their children, and the parents or guardians would need to have a high school diploma or equivalent.

The vast majority of the ideas won’t make it to the desk of Gov. J.B. Pritzker or become law, but the list of proposals offers some insights into the issues members of the lower chamber are concerned about as they kick off their new terms in office.

The bill prohibits an employer from firing someone for missing quotas because of these bathroom and meal breaks and ensures that if the employee believes they're wrongly disciplined, they have a right to sue.

Under a measure that cleared the General Assembly this week, departments would have until July 1 to put the new rule in place. It still needs a signature from Gov. J.B. Pritzker to become law.

A bill banning what unions refer to as employer-sponsored “captive audience” meetings about religion and politics has cleared the General Assembly. It was one of 466 measures to do so during the Illinois legislature’s spring session, including a bill allowing for digital driver’s licenses.

Amid the flurry of legislation was a measure prohibiting state universities from admitting students based on familial and donor ties, an expansion of the ban on sales of e-cigarettes to minors and a bill prohibiting stores from stocking alcoholic beverages near non-alcoholic lookalikes.

Lawmakers passed more than 200 bills this week ahead of their scheduled May 24 adjournment. Many of the measures will soon head to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, including a bill that changes how damages accrue under Illinois’ first-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law.

Supermajority Democrats in the Illinois House moved quickly Wednesday to push through a change to state election laws that partially limits ballot access and adds three nonbinding referendums to the 2024 general election ballot. 

The matchup between 1st District Appellate Justice Jesse Reyes and state Supreme Court Justice Joy Cunningham has turned up the volume on a conversation about diversity on the state Supreme Court.

These cultural districts include ethnic enclaves in Chicago and historically Black neighborhoods in Champaign and Springfield.