Big Government in Illinois Is Growing

Written by David E. Smith

The corporate media will not tell you this, but as a resident of Illinois, you need to know that during the 103rd General Assembly (2023-2024), more than 9,800 bills were filed during this legislative session. Thus far, Governor JB Pritzker has signed 1,057 of these bills into law. And since the session isn’t officially through until January 8, 2025, that number may yet grow.

On New Year’s Day, 293 of those laws will take effect. (See below.)

Stay tuned!

Some of our regressive state lawmakers may try to push controversial legislation through during the Lame Duck Session, which is scheduled to run January 2-8. Our top concern is the push to legalize physician-assisted suicide in our state. There is no public demand to expand healthcare to include death care.

The more we learn about the ways this green light to end human life is being abused in nations like Canada and states like California, the more opposition grows. Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator now. Ask him/her to vigorously oppose any legislation that intentionally terminates the life of another human being.

Additionally, David Curtin, IFI’s amazing lobbyist in Springfield reports that

Democrats have promised to “Trump-proof” Illinois next year. Part of that will be a lot of legislation, I think, rammed through in the Lame Duck Session so it’s quick and painful for Trump and also to avoid much scrutiny before it’s passed. Currently, that legislation is expected to be related to “reproductive rights,” health care, and measures to stymie federal efforts to deport illegals.

Regarding the latter, one such measure, HB 5164, almost passed this during the Veto Session in November. I was so grateful to God for IFI making a huge difference with legislators on that bill. With Democrats giving less than an hour’s notice before the committee hearing on this bill, IFI members filed several hundred witness slips opposing the bill! God bless everyone! All of the members of the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee took note and the conservative members REALLY appreciated it as they questioned the bill sponsor. (It’s worth noting that Democrat leadership knows this feat was difficult for any group to do. I have to admit I loved seeing their stunned reactions.)

Anyway, the proponents and opponents were announced at the start of the committee hearing. That gave energy to Illinois Senate GOP Leader John Curran (R-Lemont). On its face, HB 5164 is a terrible bill to begin with. It allows illegal immigrants, along with certain other groups, to change their names but keep their original names from appearing on any other official documents if requested. That would make it more difficult for the feds to find and deport the illegals, of course. No, no, the sponsor said. This just allows people to have some privacy who want to change their names.

However, Leader Curran had discovered a flaw in HB 5164 that not even the Illinois Senate Democrats saw. So he brought it forward in the committee hearing, which included Illinois Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) who was sitting there listening. Curran noted that HB5164 says a requestor “may” provide documentation to ask for their identity to be kept secret; Leader Curran said it should be “shall” provide documentation…..otherwise, how can authorities verify that what the requestor is telling them is true? Many people lie. Dems stumbled around trying to find a good answer. They couldn’t. They passed the bill out of committee, but President Harmon would not go forward with a floor vote until it was amended to prevent the GOP from calling out the Democrats on an obvious loophole that was “dangerous” to our citizens. Time ran out. Veto Session ended. President Harmon decided to wait and fix it instead of passing it quickly like they wanted to. Gov. Pritzker was not happy – it was to be his first legislative shot at Trump.

Still, Leader Curran told me the next day that the way Democrats are going to fix the flaw is not by changing “may” to “shall.” They obviously want to make it easy for illegals and criminals to lie. But rather, they are adding an amendment that references the Perjury Act if someone is found out later to have lied. Well, of course, then it will be too late. But Democrats will have their talking point that they’ve fixed the flaw. Still, it’s an unprecedented bad bill anyway, Leader Curran said, so his members were rarin’ to go with their floor speeches and disappointed it didn’t get heard the last day of Veto Session.

Bigger Government (Not Better Government)

In each session of the General Assembly, we tell ourselves it cannot get worse. But inevitably, the policies that are introduced and passed are often appallingly and increasingly wicked.

We now know intuitively and intellectually that the nature of Big Government is godless tyranny.

If you are a Star Trek fan, you know the Borg is a cybernetic alien group linked in a hive mind called “The Collective.” They seek to assimilate everyone they encounter, warning them that “resistance is futile – you will be assimilated.”

What an amazing metaphor for the godless Left!  Big government types, the Apostles of Wokeism, want us to surrender. They want submission. They want us to give up and stop fighting, to stop telling biblical truth.

They want to make the cost of dissent so high that we’d rather keep our mouths shut to avoid social or legal backlash.

They want us to adjust our behavior and language. They want us to conform to the godless collective.

It certainly would be easier for us as Christians to keep our heads down to avoid headaches or personal attacks. But for serious Christians, our conscience will not allow us to remain silent. We refuse to trade our integrity for a little peace of mind. We must uphold God’s truth and His standards in the public square. We must testify to truth, regardless of the costs.

New Laws in 2025

According to an article published by Capitol News Illinois, some of the new laws going into effect on January 1st include:

Digital driver’s licenses

The secretary of state can begin creating a process to issue digital driver’s licenses and state IDs beginning in the new year after Pritzker signed House Bill 4592. Residents will still be required to receive a physical ID and agencies or private entities will not be required to accept digital IDs in place of physical IDs.

Providing a phone to police to show a digital ID also doesn’t give police consent to search a person’s cell phone.

…

AI regulations

New laws governing artificial intelligence take effect Jan. 1. It will be illegal to generate child pornography using AI, according to House Bill 4623. Supporters of the bill, including the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, said it is becoming more difficult to distinguish between real and AI-generated images. They said updating Illinois’ child pornography laws was a necessary to step allow law enforcement to identify and prosecute child pornography cases.

House bill 4875 also adds new protections to prohibit using AI to recreate a person’s voice, image or likeness for commercial purposes without the person’s consent. Recording artists can seek damages for violations of the law.

Politics and religion at work

Starting Jan. 1, Senate Bill 3649, an initiative of the Illinois AFL-CIO, puts employers’ freedom of speech at risk. This law prohibits employers of private companies from mentioning anything related to politics or religion in meetings that employees are required to attend. If the employers do say anything political or religious, employees can walk out of the meetings and employers cannot discipline them. The law will take effect in Illinois, but it is being challenged in court, just as in several other states which have passed it. Among the problems, the law violates the National Labor Relations Act, doesn’t define “political” or “religious” very well; and may stymie some non-profits, including religious schools, who talk politics or religion as part of their normal workday. This bill passed over the strong objections of IFI, Catholic Conference of Illinois, and all business groups.

With the 103rd General Assembly coming to a close, and the 104th General Assembly starting on January 8th, your support we will enable us to continue analyzing new bills being introduced, lobby our state lawmakers, and educating and activating Christian citizens in support of important pro-family positions.

Make no mistake, we are up against a coordinated movement by radical advocates, the Leftist media, and many political leaders that are hostile to biblical morality and want to indoctrinate the next generation. But as the culture continues to grow darker, our opportunity (and responsibility) to be the salt and light of the earth is more important than ever!

Your faithful support of our work is a blessing to our ministry. While our opposition will always out-spend us . . . our trust remains in the Lord, knowing that we have truth, and the faithfulness of supporters like you, on our side!

Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.
~Romans 12:21~

Please help us with this matching challenge to prepare us for the battles coming in 2025!