CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS PHOTO BY ANDREW ADAMS
Almost 300 new legal guidelines will take impact in Illinois in 2025.
Time to check up, Illinois. When the clock hits midnight on New 12 months’s Day, 293 new state legal guidelines will take impact.
These embrace among the defining payments of the 2024 legislative session and others that can change how individuals get IDs, consider job postings and even cancel fitness center memberships.
Along with the legal guidelines taking impact on Jan. 1, the state’s minimal wage will rise to $15 to finish a ramp up initiated throughout Gov. JB Pritzker’s first month in workplace in 2019.
Digital driver’s licenses
The secretary of state can start making a course of to problem digital driver’s licenses and state IDs starting within the new yr after Pritzker signed House Bill 4592. Residents will nonetheless be required to obtain a bodily ID and businesses or personal entities won’t be required to simply accept digital IDs rather than bodily IDs.
Offering a cellphone to police to point out a digital ID additionally doesn’t give police consent to go looking an individual’s cellular phone.
Wage transparency
Employers with 15 or extra staff should embrace details about advantages and the wage vary on job postings, based on House Bill 3129. The regulation can even apply to companies hiring for distant work positions in Illinois.
“When employers aren’t clear about pay, gender and racial wage gaps widen, costing ladies and other people of coloration priceless compensation,” Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton stated in a information launch. “Illinois’ new Pay Transparency regulation is a convincing win for the working individuals who name our state house.”
‘Junk’ medical insurance
Quick-term, restricted period medical insurance plans will likely be unlawful in Illinois starting Jan. 1. The plans, usually referred to as “junk insurance coverage” by critics, don’t meet the minimal requirements of the federal Inexpensive Care Act.
The ban outlined in House Bill 2499 was a part of Pritzker’s medical insurance overhaul that lawmakers handed within the spring. It was geared toward lowering limitations to take care of sufferers and making well being care extra inexpensive by increasing protection necessities for insurance coverage firms.
Quick-term insurance policy are sometimes for individuals who have a lapse in medical insurance protection resembling once they lose or change jobs, however they’re completely different from COBRA advantages, which most employers are required to supply underneath federal regulation.
Supporters of the invoice argued the plans are misleading and stick shoppers with enormous out-of-pocket prices, however others stated the plans present shoppers with an inexpensive choice to fill a niche in protection.
Caregiver discrimination
House Bill 2161 provides household obligations to the listing of classes protected against discrimination and retaliation within the office. The brand new regulation prevents employers from taking adversarial motion in opposition to staff due to their obligations as a caregiver for a member of the family, which may trigger them to overlook work.
Invoice sponsor Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, advised a Home committee in April that pregnant ladies are a great instance of who the invoice is designed to assist. He stated pregnant ladies shouldn’t be handed up for a promotion or face different penalties at work in anticipation that they are going to be taking break day to care for his or her child. Guzzardi pressured the invoice doesn’t defend staff who fail to satisfy job efficiency necessities.
AI laws
New legal guidelines governing synthetic intelligence take impact Jan. 1. It will likely be unlawful to generate youngster pornography utilizing AI, based on House Bill 4623. Supporters of the invoice, together with the Illinois Lawyer Basic’s Workplace, stated it’s turning into tougher to differentiate between actual and AI-generated pictures. They stated updating Illinois’ youngster pornography legal guidelines was a essential to step permit regulation enforcement to establish and prosecute youngster pornography circumstances.
House bill 4875 additionally provides new protections to ban utilizing AI to recreate an individual’s voice, picture or likeness for business functions with out the particular person’s consent. Recording artists can search damages for violations of the regulation.
Politics and faith at work
Workers can’t be required to take a seat by means of work conferences discussing faith or politics beginning Jan. 1. Senate Bill 3649, an initiative of the Illinois AFL-CIO, creates new protections for workers who skip out on such conferences and prevents employers from retaliating in opposition to them.
The regulation doesn’t prohibit discussing faith or politics at work, however staff aren’t required to take part within the discussions if such actions aren’t a part of their job. The regulation excludes non-profit and advocacy teams the place politics or faith could also be a part of job.
Coming later in 2025
Pritzker’s signature well being reform package deal goes into impact on Jan. 1, however most provisions don’t need to be carried out till the start of 2026. House Bill 5395 bans “step remedy,” which requires sufferers to try to fail therapies most popular by insurance coverage firms earlier than they’ll obtain the remedy advisable by their physician.
It additionally bans insurance coverage firms from requiring prior authorization for emergency in-patient psychological well being remedy, requires insurers to maintain up-to-date lists of in-network suppliers and expands the ability of the Illinois Division of Insurance coverage to manage premium charges.
Many resorts in Illinois will now not be allowed to supply clients with single-use plastic cleaning soap and shampoo starting July 1 underneath Senate Bill 2960. The transfer is designed to chop down on waste from single-use merchandise. The Illinois Resort & Lodging Affiliation supported the change. Accommodations with fewer than 50 rooms have till 2026 to make the change.
Different new legal guidelines
NIL cash: Scholar athletes at NCAA universities can earn title, picture and likeness cash immediately from their universities. House Bill 307 was an initiative of the College of Illinois.
Listening to aids: Insurance coverage suppliers should cowl medically prescribed listening to aids for all individuals underneath House Bill 2443. Protection was beforehand solely required for these underneath 18.
Fitness center memberships: House Bill 4911 requires gyms and health facilities to simply accept a number of methods for individuals to cancel their membership. Bodily health places additionally should now permit clients to cancel their membership by e-mail or on-line. Clients can even be allowed to submit written discover for canceling their membership by mail.
Subscription renewals: Companies that provide a free trial or promotional interval for his or her services or products should notify clients at the least three days earlier than the subscription mechanically renews at a paid charge underneath Senate Bill 2764. The regulation solely applies to subscriptions longer than 15 days.
Crime sufferer DNA: DNA proof collected from an individual who’s the sufferer of against the law to help a felony investigation can’t be entered right into a DNA database, based on House Bill 1168.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan information service that distributes state authorities protection to tons of of reports retailers statewide. It’s funded primarily by the Illinois Press Basis and the Robert R. McCormick Basis.
