The General Assembly is on a two-week hiatus from Springfield, giving us time to catch up and get ready for the weeks ahead. Here is a wrap up on a number of issues on which there has been activity since our last report.

Attempts to Censor Video Games

We were disappointed when the full House of Representatives approved House Bill 4023 - supported by Governor Rod Blagojevich. The legislation seeks to limit the sale and/or rental of "violent" video games to anyone 18 or younger. The vote in the House was 91 in favor, 19 opposed and 6 voting "present." You can look at the vote of your state representative by opening up a PDF file at http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/votehistory/94/house/09400HB4023_03162005_008000T.pdf. There are a number of problems with the legislation. Federal courts - including the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago - have rejected schemes like House Bill 4023 to block access to video games. This means that the state's taxpayers will bear the cost to defend in court - a law that ultimately will be found unconstitutional. House Bill 4023 is part of a long history of censorship - in which government officials believe it appropriate - to suggest the imposition of their views on all parents. In a free society, we leave the decision about what it is age-appropriate to parents, not politicians. Parents will make different decisions based on the characteristics of their children. Some parents will decide that their child is ready at 17-years-old to see and read materials that other parents may allow their children to access at 16-years-old. These are decisions best left to mothers and fathers, not government officials. This approach is at the core of our defense of the First Amendment.

Fighting Racial Profiling

We were very pleased when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 581 by a unanimous vote on March 16th. Senate Bill 581, a measure that creates a pilot program to collect and analyze data about stops of pedestrians on sidewalks by Chicago police soon will be considered by the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee. The measure is an important "next step" in fighting racial profiling in the State of Illinois. It builds on the data collection and analysis of traffic stops adopted in 2003. Senate Bill 581 reflects the "best practice" in contemporary law enforcement. Police officers commonly detain pedestrians on sidewalks and other public places, deprive them of their freedom of movement, conduct a pat-down frisk of most of their body, and interrogate them about possible criminal wrongdoing. The United States Supreme Court has described these nonconsensual detentions and frisks as "annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating." Unfortunately, some police officers practice racial profiling in deciding which civilians to subject to these investigative detentions and frisks. Collecting and analyzing data about police stops is a critical step to preventing and detecting racial profiling. Senate Bill 581 now moves onto the full Senate for a vote. We will keep you posted.

Juvenile Justice

We also were very pleased that the Senate Judiciary Committee acted - on a vote of 8 to 2 - approved Senate Bill 458. The legislation would raise the age of those over which Illinois' juvenile courts have jurisdiction from 17 to 18. This legislation is very important - it increases the number of young people who will be eligible for the mental health, drug treatment and more appropriate community-based services available in the juvenile justice system. Thirty-eight states and the federal government use eighteen as the age of adult criminal jurisdiction. We will keep you posted on the progress of this legislation.

Responsible Sex Education for Students in Illinois

Some recent research has pointed out anew the need for medically-accurate, age-appropriate sex education in our schools - programs designed to replace the ineffective and inefficient "abstinence only" education that is favored by some who do not wish young people who may become sexually active to have access to the information necessary to make good healthy decisions. We are happy that Senate Bill 457, a measure that requires the development of medically-accurate, age-appropriate sexual education for the public schools in Illinois passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee by a vote of 7 in favor and 3 against. Senate Bill 457 now moves the full Senate for a vote. If you are interested in helping with this effort - or learning more about the effort in our State to replace abstinence-only sex education with medically accurate education, you can learn more about a coalition effort being led by the Illinois Caucus on Adolescent Health and the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council at http://www.responsiblesexed.org/il/home.html.