SPRINGFIELD — While Illinois continues to battle the Trump administration over deploying National Guard troops, the nuts-and-bolts world of state government will keep on turning in the capital as lawmakers head back to potentially tackle high energy and insurance costs, legislation that could affect a new Chicago Bears stadium and the uncertain future of public transportation.
Gov. JB Pritzker said last week there are “lots of discussions, no determinations,” about a possible legislative response to the National Guard issue when lawmakers reconvene for the fall veto session for three days starting Tuesday, with three more days at the end of October. As they are the final session days of the year, lawmakers could end up tackling numerous issues — or none at all.
But perhaps the most significant item on the to-do list is deciding whether to implement sweeping changes and secure much-needed funding to keep buses and trains in the Chicago region running on time.
Despite Democrats dominating both the Illinois House and Senate, legislators concluded their spring session without addressing the huge revenue shortfall in the transit budget, which had fluctuating estimates in the hundreds of millions of dollars. When the Senate pushed through an eleventh-hour bill with a funding proposal and changes to the governing structure overseeing the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace, the House chose not to put the matter up for a vote.
Now, the stakes are even higher as federal COVID-19 relief money for transit networks is running out, and 40% cuts in service across all three agencies could occur by next year, increasing fares and laying off employees if substantive state funding doesn’t come to the rescue.
“We have to act on this,” said Democratic state Sen. Mike Simmons, whose district includes Far North Side neighborhoods in Chicago where CTA and Metra train lines pass through. “That’s going to hurt our small business corridors. That’s going to hurt our bars and taverns. That’s going to hurt the commuting patterns of some of our students that go to our local universities. That’s going to hurt our immigrant families that are low-income people up here that depend on public transit that don’t have cars.”
But with higher stakes also come higher demands: Any legislation passed at this time of year that would take effect before June 2026 requires a three-fifths vote rather than a simple majority in both chambers. Per the session’s “fall veto” name, lawmakers also can overturn any bills coming out of the previous five-month spring session that were vetoed by the governor.
For instance, Pritzker blocked a bill backed by fellow Democrat Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs to create an investment pool for nonprofits and labor organizations aimed at alleviating financial pressure for such groups. But Pritzker vetoed it because he was concerned extremist groups with nonprofit arms could also benefit from it.
Energy costs are also top of mind as lawmakers may consider a response to spikes caused by technological advances amid the state’s recent efforts to boost clean energy jobs and promote renewable energy standards.
Other unresolved issues include regulating insurance pricing — particularly following a stiff rate hike for State Farm homeowners insurance customers — and whether help could come for the Chicago Bears by passing a property tax relief bill to aid in the team’s latest plans to construct a new stadium complex in northwest suburban Arlington Heights.
‘We want to see better service’
Frustrated with a barrage of CTA service complaints in recent years, Springfield leaders heading the transit bill discussions adopted a “no funding without reform” message.
In an interview with the Tribune earlier this month, one of the House’s lead transit negotiators, Democratic state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado of Chicago, said work remains to be done to secure enough votes for the legislation, and she acknowledged a new bill could be introduced during the fall session.
The legislation introduced in the waning days of the spring session and passed by the Senate would have replaced the Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the CTA, Metra and Pace, with a new entity called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority that would be given broad planning authority, including for fare policy and service planning. The legislation sought to allay concerns from suburban interests that the suburbs don’t have enough say in the governing decisions over regional transit, and others who decried the current structure as overly complex.
“I think it lays out a really clear roadmap about ‘these are the types of things that we want to see in the transit agencies.’ We want to see unification across the transit agencies. We want to see that collaboration, coordination. We want to see better service, all of those things,” Delgado said. “But as with any large bill, there’s always tweaks that can be made.”
During a town hall meeting last month at Harry S. Truman College on Chicago’s North Side, state Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat and lead sponsor of the Senate transit bill, said it’s important that the transit agencies “are talking to each other, that they’re working together.”
“We don’t need an approach where CTA does its own thing, Metra does its own thing and Pace does its own thing,” he said.
Hovering over the entire public transit debate is the agencies’ presumed fiscal cliff, which has ranged from as high as $771 million to as low as about $200 million.
The bill that cleared the Senate, Villivalam has said, could generate some $1.7 billion through various new taxes and fees, including a $1.50 package delivery fee and a real estate transfer tax at $1.50 for every $500 of value. Those would apply to suburban Cook County and the collar counties.
The bill also includes a law enforcement task force that would be active across Chicago and suburban train lines, as well as a transit ambassador program to assist riders with other public safety concerns.
Should substantive transit legislation not pass the General Assembly, Villivalam warned the Truman College audience, riders would be significantly affected.
“Thirty percent of Pace riders transfer to the CTA. There’s over 100 connections from Metra to CTA,” he said as a warning to suburban commuters. “Let me tell you, you can take that Metra train in, but that CTA bus won’t be there to give you that connection to where you need to go.”
Lawmakers have also emphasized that any solution suitable for Chicago-area transit must also benefit downstate transit systems. As Villivalam said, there are more than 50 transit systems downstate that cover more than 90 counties.
Republican state Rep. Brad Stephens, who has been working with Democrats on the transit legislation, said there are still some unknowns regarding how a new transit system would operate, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the legislature passes a bill on it and then returns to make adjustments.
“We shouldn’t throw a billion and a half at them and say ‘OK, get ’em, Tiger.’ We don’t think that that’s the right thing,” said Stephens, who is also the mayor of Rosemont. “How do we handle the policing? How do we handle making sure that the buses and trains are on time? How do we make sure that it’s cleaner? I don’t think that anybody’s really talked about if those three milestones are met, what does it do? Does ridership take off? And what kind of … additional revenue do we see from additional ridership?”
No immediate energy bill relief
The future of energy in Illinois is also potentially on the fall agenda but any bill that passes won’t provide immediate relief on the issue most on ratepayers’ minds — soaring electricity bills.
In May, downstate electric provider Ameren Corp. predicted that during the summer months, its residential customers would spend approximately $45 more than their average monthly electricity bill of $151. The actual increases were much higher, partly because downstate Illinois experienced 10 consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures in June, the company said.
Also to blame, Democratic state Sen. Bill Cunningham of Chicago said, were capacity charges regional grid operators, such as the Midwest Independent System Operator and PJM Interconnection, impose on utilities to reserve space for future electricity shipments.
“There is almost nothing we can do as Illinois legislators to address that immediately,” Cunningham said in an interview. “We can do it long term by getting more generation on the grid, renewable or otherwise. But it will take three or four or five years for that to kick in.”
Monitoring Analytics, an independent auditor for PJM, attributed soaring capacity charges “almost entirely” to rising electricity demand from data centers.
Illinois is joining Pennsylvania and 10 other states in pressuring PJM to lower rates and connect new renewable power sources more quickly. The proposed energy bill would also authorize the Illinois Commerce Commission to study whether Illinois should withdraw from MISO and PJM and establish its own grid, similar to Texas and California.
In a centerpiece of the bill, legislators are debating whether to add 6 gigawatts of battery storage to the grid by 2035.
The batteries would require billions of dollars in upfront investment, which would be financed by battery developers and secured through surcharges on consumers’ monthly utility bills. However, by insulating Illinois from future capacity charge increases on the regional grids, the batteries would start providing rate relief for consumers by 2033, said Mark Pruitt, former director of the Illinois Power Agency.
In other provisions, the bill would fund pilot programs for geothermal energy networks, repeal the existing moratorium on new large-scale nuclear construction, and increase subsidies to retrofit homes to use less energy.
Advocates for all of these measures also promise rate relief but they all depend on long-term forecasts on energy markets that fluctuate widely from year to year and even day to day, said Matthew Tomc, vice president of regulatory policy and energy supply for Ameren.
“There’s a considerable amount of uncertainty,’’ he said, “as to the final cost customers will be responsible for.”
For now, Illinois enjoys an electricity surplus because of its 11 nuclear reactors, the most of any state. But shortfalls are looming as the state prepares to close 28 gigawatts of coal and natural gas generating plants by 2045 to improve air quality. That’s roughly equal to 28 nuclear reactors.
In a significant policy shift, the energy bill would authorize the ICC to begin a centralized planning process and offer new long-term incentives for matching the state’s energy supply with rising demand.
Illinois hasn’t studied these issues formally since before deregulating its energy markets in 1997, Pruitt said. Separately, the ICC and other agencies plan to issue a final report on resource adequacy through 2030 by mid-December.
Despite the bill’s sweeping scope, the bill’s drafters are still struggling with narrow disagreements, such as organized labor’s push for more Illinois union workers on community solar projects, said Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. This push could impede the state’s effort to recruit more Black and brown contractors, she said.
To reduce air pollution, the bill would require data centers to use diesel backup generators only during emergencies and not for routine operations. Legislators could still take up a provision this month that could require data centers to pay higher rates for their massive electricity needs to make sure residential customers and small businesses don’t wind up footing the bill, Cunningham said.
Before the rate debate can begin, however, data center operators want the state to shield them from privacy lawsuits stemming from information stored on their servers.
Insurance regulation
Another pocketbook issue arose this summer after State Farm announced it would increase homeowners’ insurance by 27.2%, citing rising costs due to extreme weather events and more expensive repairs.
The governor’s office and other advocates back a proposal to establish a rate review process for homeowners, renters and auto insurance, and require businesses to be more transparent with government entities about their rate hike decisions.
One bill filed earlier this year by Democratic state Sen. Michael Hastings of Frankfort would regulate these rates “in order that they will not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory,” something he acknowledged in July would be a starting point for discussions in the months leading to the fall session.
Since then, Hastings is pushing for other insurance-related legislation, including a measure to prohibit insurance companies from shifting the costs of natural disasters that occur in other states to Illinois consumers.
But the insurance industry has pushed back on some of the homeowners insurance rate proposals, arguing additional regulation of Illinois’ insurance market would lead to higher costs.
Bears stadium
The Chicago Bears could also attempt to pursue legislation to ease their planned move to Arlington Heights, where the team purchased the former Arlington International Racecourse in 2023 for $197 million. Team officials said they need lawmakers to pass a so-called megaproject bill that would enable them to negotiate with local schools and other taxing bodies and devise a long-term property tax agreement for the proposed multibillion-dollar stadium complex the team wants to start building next year.
But Chicago lawmakers are reluctant to support any measure that would incentivize the Bears to move outside the city.
Late last month, the team released projections showing a new stadium in the suburb would generate thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic activity, but would also cost $855 million in public funds for infrastructure, such as entrance and exit ramps from near Illinois Route 53 and changes to the adjacent Metra train line.
While state officials oppose helping the Bears pay for a new stadium itself, the state has been open to helping businesses with funding for infrastructure improvements if they acquire new property.
“I believe that all parties are operating in good faith. They all have their own restrictions,” said state Sen. Mark Walker, a Democrat from Arlington Heights. “The Bears are a valuable asset for Illinois. So the state’s not going to abandon them in terms of supporting them like they would any other big company.”
Lippert is a freelance reporter. Tribune reporter Olivia Olander contributed.