Article Summary
- The Illinois House passed 81 bills Thursday to bring the week’s total to 133, which included several measures designed to benefit consumers.
- A long-proposed bill to improve price transparency and ban junk fees passed the House for the second time in three years.
- A plan pushed by Gov. JB Pritzker to create a new abortion grant fund is advancing to the Senate.
- Lawmakers also approved bills to expand eligibility for in-state college tuition.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
SPRINGFIELD — For the second time in three years, the Illinois House voted to ban hidden “junk fees” that are often added to the total cost of ticketed events, hotel rooms and other goods and services.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, passed 77-18. It was among more than 80 bills the House approved Thursday afternoon.
House Bill 228 amends the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act to make it a violation for a business to not display all mandatory fees and charges they’re adding on top of a listed price. The goal is to ensure consumers are aware of the total price before making the purchase.
“This bill delivers on a promise that’s quite simple: The price that you see should be the price that you pay,” Morgan told lawmakers during floor debate. He estimated that the hidden fees cost an average Illinois family $3,000 annually.
Junk fees have long been a target for consumer advocates and progressive lawmakers. The Illinois House approved a ban in 2024 but it was was never voted on in the Senate.
In his State of the State address this year, Gov. JB Pritzker explicitly called for lawmakers to get the issue across the finish line, arguing that such fees were “quietly nickel-and-diming Illinois families out of thousands of dollars per year.”
Morgan said the bill was like the one that passed a couple years ago, but ambiguous language was tightened up to make it easier for businesses to comply and the Illinois Attorney General’s office to enforce.
Nine Republicans joined supermajority Democrats in supporting the amended bill. However, the changes weren’t enough to remove opposition from the state’s top business, banking and hospitality organizations.
Rep. Tom Weber, R-Lake Villa, who voted against the bill, said the underlying idea was a good one, but the legislation went “a step too far on our already overburdened businesses.”
The bill now moves to the Illinois Senate.
Abortion fund
The House on Thursday voted along party lines 69-36 to pass a bill that would create a grant fund to cover abortion care for uninsured and underinsured people.
House Bill 5408, another of Pritzker’s initiatives, would utilize an under-used provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires insurance plans that offer coverage for abortions in instances that go beyond rape, incest and the life of the mother to collect at least $1 a month from enrollees to cover the cost of abortion claims.
Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, the bill sponsor, said she anticipates an amendment in the Senate because of concerns from Illinois’ health insurance industry.
“This is an important bill that helps support our reproductive health care providers in the state of Illinois and ensure that women who need this health care are able to access it,” she said.
Cash payment requirement
Many Illinois stores would be required to accept cash in most circumstances under House Bill 4592, which passed the House unanimously on Thursday.
The bill requires any store with a physical location that employs someone to accept in-person transactions to accept cash for transactions under $500. Stores would not be required to accept currency larger than $20. The bill would take effect in 2028 and now awaits further consideration in the Senate.
Grocery coupon access
House Bill 45 would require retailers to provide digital promotions or coupons to eligible customers. Bill sponsor Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, D-Naperville, said the bill came from concerns that eligible customers were being denied access to the same benefits because paper coupons were not available.
The original version of the bill required merchants to provide paper coupons, but the amendment broadened the regulation to ensure all eligible customers for a coupon are afforded access to the promotion.
There is no penalty to the merchant unless the establishment does not cure a violation within 15 days of being notified of the violation. The bill passed unanimously and moves on to the Senate.
In-state tuition
House Bill 5093 removes a requirement in state law that a student who attended an Illinois high school could only receive in-state tuition at an Illinois university if they did not establish residency outside the state before enrolling in an Illinois university. With the change, students who attend at least two years of high school in Illinois could receive in-state tuition regardless of whether they moved out of state before going to college.
“As a first generation, I can’t imagine having to live in Illinois all my life, but then when I go to a university, be considered for out-of-state tuition because I’m an immigrant,” bill sponsor Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, told Capitol News Illinois. “Of course in-state tuition, it is cheaper and I want to have more students be able to access that.”
The bill passed the House on Thursday on a partisan 71-37 vote, with Republicans arguing the bill would unfairly benefit non-citizens. It now moves on to the Senate.
Narcan for formerly incarcerated
House Bill 5302 would require the Illinois Department of Corrections to provide opioid antagonists like Narcan to any incarcerated person who was charged for a drug-related offense or has a substance abuse disorder upon their release.
Bill sponsor Rep. Justin Slaughter, D-Orland Park, said overdose rates have decreased, and initiatives like this would further the initiative to decrease overdose deaths. The bill passed 77-29 and awaits further consideration in the Senate.
State bee
Illinois could soon have an official state bee after the House approved House Bill 4438, which Yang Rohr said was an initiative of Lincoln Junior High School students in Naperville. The bill would give the honor to the Black-and-Gold Bumblebee — scientifically known as bombas auricomus.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
