Last week was a tough week. The House and Senate spent days and long nights in both chambers debating and passing legislation that would make the devil proud. That’s really the only way to say it. By the Friday, April 17 deadline, bills that attack life, family, and common sense passed their respective chambers.
Now, the goal is to stop these terrible bills in the 2nd chamber to keep them from going to the Governor’s desk.
Of course, the bad legislation passed on partisan roll calls. But that was small comfort when SB3138, a mental health bill, passed without IFI’s hoped-for debate and questions. It was treated as just another bad bill. I won’t go into the details, except to say lessons were learned.
Some bad bills were thankfully stopped and now head back to Rules: HB 2960 (Faver Dias) would require mental-health instruction in high school health classes; HB 2929 (Ford) would direct DHS to set up at least one overdose prevention site where people can use drugs under State supervision; and HB 4039 (LaPointe) takes the “overdose-prevention-site” pilot program and builds the extensive state bureaucracy to support and expand it in anticipation of its “success.” Lord have mercy. Anyway, the good news is these bills didn’t make the Friday deadline. The bad news is they aren’t dead until they’re dead.
Here are the ugly bills that passed their respective chamber this week. We have a shot at stopping the House bills in the Senate, but only with your help.
HB 4966 – no Senate sponsor is listed yet. HB 4966 shifts decision-making authority at DCFS away from traditional placement standards and toward the confused child’s expressed preferences regarding gender and sexuality when deciding placement. Out-of-state parents especially will have no rights.
It also layers in new mandates on DCFS and caregivers, including training requirements, reporting obligations, and ongoing oversight tied to those placement decisions. As a backup, if the child would happen to be placed with a parent who doesn’t agree with the child’s expressed preferences in gender or sexuality, the bill allows those individuals to sue if the placement decisions weren’t handled “correctly.”
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE HB 4966.
HB 4834 – Adriane Johnson (D-Waukegan): removes testosterone, mifepristone, misoprostol, GnRH analogues, and estrogen from the Prescription Monitoring Program, a state-run system that lets doctors and pharmacists see what drugs a patient has already been prescribed, mainly to prevent abuse and dangerous interactions. But in this case, to remove records of transgender hormone therapy and medical abortions. These prescriptions will no longer be tracked or visible to other providers plus it requires deleting some existing testosterone prescription records.
There was a long, substantive debate on the floor about how this will harm all patients. Dr. William Hauter (R-Morton) was especially forceful. He said doctors rely on this past prescribing information when treating patients, especially new patients; it is a matter of life or death sometimes. No matter. Death prevailed in the partisan vote.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE HB 4834.
HB 4839 – Celina Villanueva (D-Chicago): deletes the requirement of a fetal death certificate for disposing of aborted or miscarried fetal remains of less than 20 weeks gestation. Directs the Department of Public Health to create a form to obtain a permit for disposal of remains; requires the local registrar to seal the form; and prohibits the funeral director from keeping a copy. This disgraceful bill treats human remains as nothing more than garbage.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE HB 4839.
HB 5295 – no Senate sponsor is listed yet. HB 5295 is all about locking down abortion-related medical information and keeping it inside Illinois. It requires health data systems to hide that information and then restrict when and how it can be shared—especially with out-of-state entities.
Once again, during debate on the House floor, Dr. William Hauter (R-Morton) said this bill puts lives in danger and is putting politics above people’s lives. The super majority didn’t care because it protects abortions.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE HB 5295.
HB 5408 – Mary Edly-Allen (D-Grayslake): sets up a new Abortion Access Fund inside state government and then finds a way to feed it. It creates a grant program to subsidize abortions when federal dollars can’t be used. Just as disheartening is how the money gets there. The bill requires certain insurance exchange issuers to track abortion-related premium activity, and when those premiums bring in more than what’s actually paid out in abortion-related claims, that excess gets redirected into the state’s abortion fund. In other words, the state is taking surplus premium dollars tied to abortion coverage and using them to finance additional abortions through a state-run program.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE HB 5408.
SB 3138 – no House sponsor is listed yet. This creates the framework for the bill passed last year that requires mental health testing in grade school starting in 3rd grade. It builds out the State’s Children’s Mental Health Partnership and pulls in BEACON data for statewide monitoring, giving it a bigger role in shaping policy and oversight, so it’s not just advisory. It mandates LGBTQ representation from youth and community stakeholders. The people who believe a boy can be a girl will be overseeing mental health screening of your children.
Click HERE to send an email to your state representative to OPPOSE SB 3138.
Extended Deadlines on These Bills
These 5 bills received 3rd Reading deadline extensions to May 8 in the Senate. That means the Senate can still pass these bills up until May 8. The Senate comes back into session April 28 and will likely be laser focused on passing these.
SB 3341 – Graciela Guzman (D-Chicago): allows minors to receive contraceptive services or supplies with no parental consent.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE SB 3341.
SB 3669 – Adriane Johnson (D-Waukegan): requires every school district to create a plan for students struggling with academic, social-emotional, and behavioral issues. More mental health intervention. The plans would entail identifying students based on the district’s criteria, provide help, collect data on them and provide more intensive intervention if they don’t respond. Parents may be involved only at the school district’s discretion.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE SB 3669.
SB 2202 – Graciela Guzman (D-Chicago): prohibits public colleges from having policies that would discipline students or faculty members for speech that would otherwise be protected under the First Amendment on campus or off campus, no matter how offensive or controversial. It also allows faculty or staff or students to sue the universities and colleges if their “rights” are violated.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE SB 2202.
SB 2772 – Rachel Ventura (D-Joliet): creates a statewide advisory board to start laying the groundwork for legal psilocybin use in Illinois. Psilocybin is a psychedelic and a Schedule 1 Drug, which means there’s a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment, and a lack of accepted safety for use even under medical supervision.
The board sits inside state government and is tasked with making recommendations on everything from safety standards to licensing, training requirements, and how psilocybin “services” would actually be delivered.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE SB 2772.
SB 2805 – Karina Villanueva (D-Chicago): Creates a nursing home, assisted living and home health care “Bill of Rights” as it pertains to sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Misgendering and keeping records that conflict with a person’s perceived gender could result in legal action by residents or their representatives.
Click HERE to email your state senator to OPPOSE SB 2805.
THANK YOU!
