LEGISLATIVE NEWS
- Legislative news and legislation to watch.
- The Illinois 104th General Assembly has convened.
The House and Senate have scheduled their sessions for the Spring Session of the General Assembly. committees have been formed and consideration of several items of legislation that has been introduced will soon take place. As of Jan 31, 2025, the House has filed 2,423 bills and the Senate 1,497 bills, several of them have an effect on veterans. Working on identifying them now.
As in the past, we will be looking for help from individual post members to submit Witness Slips as bills that impact veterans are scheduled for hearings.
- To research any bill the Illinois General Assembly Site at
https://ilga.gov
- Type in bill number (must be 4 numbers after the HB or SB)
- I encourage those interested to visit or bookmark a link to Illinois
General Assembly Dashboard at https://my.ilga.gov
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Illinois Lobby Day 2025
This year, the IL AMVETS is organizing and hosting the Illinois Veteran’s Lobby Day in Springfield, IL on March 19, 2025. Again, we are inviting other IL veteran service organizations to join us as we lobby out state legislators on various veteran issues. Anyone that wishes to participate should plan on being in Springfield that day. The day will start at 8 am with a meeting of all the participants for coffee and donuts at VFW Post 755, 2211 Old Jacksonville Rd, Springfield, IL 62704. This will be an opportunity for everyone to discuss the planned visits for the day and the talking points that will be discussed with members of the IL General Assembly. A detailed schedule of the day and the scheduled visits will be handed out at the meeting. At 9:30, we will break up into teams and visit the offices of the State Representatives and the State Senators to talk about the veteran’s issues in IL. The day will conclude at approximately 5 pm when we gather at Boone’s Saloon, 301 W Edwards St, Springfield, IL (1 block from the State Capitol) for social hour and to discuss the day’s results. All the talking points and bill info will be provided, so no lobby experience is necessary. This has been successfully done at the federal level to discuss veteran’s issues and the state lobby day last year was instrumental in helping to get some bills signed into law. It is important that our State Legislators know what veteran’s issues we think are important for IL and our members. Please plan to attend and make our IL Veteran’s Lobby Day a success.
