Shriver Center Advocacy Accomplishments in 2007 Illinois General Assembly Session

Unprecedented acrimony and gridlock characterized the 2007 Illinois General Assembly session. The overtime session finally produced a budget in August, but then the governor line-item-vetoed half a billion dollars of pet legislative projects. An override effort is under way for the fall veto session in October. In spite of this uncooperative atmosphere, the Shriver Center was still able to have a very productive session. This is because of our relationships, the power of ideas we promote, and our experience and judgment. Here are the successful public education and advocacy projects that we led or led with partners:

1. Senate Bill 534 amended the Safe Homes Act to include oral month-to-month tenants in the Act’s protections for victims of sexual abuse, stalking, or violence. Under the Act, victims have a right to have the landlord change their locks, and they have the right to terminate a tenancy if they need to move in order to be safe.  (Wendy Pollack and Katherine Walz advocated for the Act.)

If you are interested in distributing materials to your clients or partner organizations, or if you would like to receive training on the Safe Homes Act in Illinois, contact Alexis Hamilton at 312.263.3830 ext. 274 or alexishamilton@povertylaw.org.

2. House Bill 1330 is the Ensuring Success in Schools Act. It creates a statewide task force to develop best-practice recommendations for teachers and school staff to support students who are victims of domestic and sexual violence or pregnant or parenting or all three. The goal is to keep these elementary and secondary students in school and keep them safe. (Pollack.)

For further information on this bill, you can download the latest WomanView e-newsletter or contact Wendy Pollack, director of the Women’s Law and Policy Project, at 312.263.3830 ext. 238 or wendypollack@povertylaw.org.

3. H.B. 1662 creates the Children’s Savings Accounts task force, which will examine the issues involved in establishing a bank account for every child born in Illinois and develop a proposed model for such a program in Illinois by 2009. (Dory Rand.)

If you would like to learn more about this law or other asset-building work at the Shriver Center, visit http://www.povertylaw.org/advocacy/community-investment.

4. S.B. 338 amends the Illinois earned income tax credit statute to eliminate special funding requirements linked to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, so that it is now the same as any other tax credit. The funding restrictions had prevented thousands of eligible families from receiving the credit. This change sets the stage for a substantial expansion of the credit in the context of wider revenue reform measures in Illinois. (Dan Lesser.)

5. H.B. 1009 improves the child care subsidy program by changing the eligibility maximum from 50 percent of state median income to 180 percent of the federal poverty level; this effectively indexes it to inflation. The state budget also increases subsidy rates for providers. Another bill creates a task force to look at the copayments issue for child care to make sure they are not too high and that they phase in smoothly. Dan Lesser is a cochair of this task force, which is already meeting. (Lesser.)

6. H.B.1797 amends the Condominium Conversion Act to help stop “stealth conversions” by requiring timely and adequate notice to all tenants of impending conversions. (Walz.)

7. H.B. 617 provides for confidentiality of juvenile court records in other types of civil proceedings. While the records have always been confidential in the juvenile court context, litigants in other types of cases, especially evictions, had been having success subpoenaing the records. (Walz)

8. House Joint Resolution 8/Senate Joint Resolution 6 reauthorizes the legislative task force on employment barriers for people with conviction records. (Margaret Stapleton.)

9. S.B. 1391/ H.B.1293 allows early release from prison, supervision, or parole for those who obtain a GED (general educational development) certificate for the first time during incarceration or while on parole. (Stapleton.)

10. H.B. 2734 is the Drug School Act, which establishes drug school as an alternative to incarceration for low-level drug possession offenses. (Stapleton.)

11. H.B. 1332 would have forbidden certain state agencies from asking about convictions at the beginning of a hiring process, although it would have allowed these questions later in the process. The bill passed, but the governor vetoed it. (Stapleton.)

12. S.B. 229 was a comprehensive “technical rewrite” of the debt collection statute, driven by the bill collection industry and bar. After it passed as a noncontroversial bill, an obscure section of the bill was discovered to have removed the authority of trial court judges to order that less than 15 percent of a debtor’s wages may be garnished to pay a debt. The old law had provided 15 percent as a maximum, which allowed lower amounts in the judge’s discretion. The subtle but key amendment deleted the word “maximum,” leaving 15 percent as the only option. Alerted by legal services agencies, the Shriver Center researched and drafted a successful amendatory veto letter that helped persuade the governor to restore the original statute (the word “maximum”). (John Bouman.)

13. In our role as cochair of the Illinois Asset Building Group, the Center worked with partners and through a retained expert to improve policies involving public utilities. The legislature and governor approved increased funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, rejected proposed electric utility rate increases, and created a new state agency to purchase energy at competitive rates at lower costs to consumers.

The Shriver Center accomplished the above projects while also spending considerable time and resources on Senate Bill 5, the governor’s universal health care plan known as Illinois Covered. It is one of the most important bills ever debated in Illinois affecting health, workforce, business, economic, family, and community policy, not to mention tax policy. It is expensive, if done right. Due to complex revenue issues, political personalities, and simply the tremendous stakes, the bill did not pass. But it was not voted down outright either. While the situation remains extremely complex, the Shriver Center believes that the issue has been moved forward during the session, mostly because there is in fact a crisis powerfully affecting virtually every household in the state and compelling policymakers to attend to it. The process will continue through the fall and into 2008’s spring session.