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SPRINGFIELD – In the midst of deep economic uncertainty and inflation heating up, State Senator Lakesia Collins joined the Illinois Revenue Alliance calling for progressive revenue reform to fill the gap for families in Illinois.

“When Illinois families are struggling to make ends meet and at a time of troublesome cuts from the federal government, Illinois has to step up,” said Collins (D-Chicago). “Reforming our revenue system protects everyday folks who rely on Illinois programs to meet their needs. With the amount of uncertainty in the economy today, now is the time for action.”

Collins spoke on the need for revenue reform in a press conference at the State Capitol on Wednesday advocating for Senate Bill 3796, a proposal that would decouple Illinois from federal tax changes, end high-impact business credits and require a cost-benefit analysis of corporate tax incentives.

SPRINGFIELD – To strengthen protections for students and help schools identify concerning behavior before it escalates, State Senator Lakesia Collins advanced legislation to improve reporting requirements, reinforce professional boundaries between educators and students, and increase transparency regarding school misconduct policies.

“Every student deserves to feel safe and supported at school,” said Collins (D-Chicago). “This measure will strengthen safeguards for children by giving schools clearer expectations, stronger reporting tools and additional accountability measures designed to prevent misconduct before it occurs.”

Through Collins’ legislation, House Bill 4534, protections for children in schools would be expanded by redefining patterns of grooming behavior as a form of abuse under state law. The measure would also require school districts, charter schools and private schools to maintain and publicly post employee professional conduct policies, provide clear methods for reporting staff-student boundary violations, and establish expectations between school employees and students.

SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Lakesia Collins joined the Illinois Revenue Alliance on Wednesday to highlight a plan to address the impact of federal tax cuts and corporate loopholes that primarily benefit the ultra-wealthy.

“The federal government expects Illinois to automatically adapt our tax codes to match new changes in theirs that benefit the wealthiest 1% of Americans,” said Collins (D-Chicago). “We refuse to sit by while the very wealthy – billionaires and big corporations – are made richer at the expense of working families.”

Over the last year, near-weekly threats from the Trump administration to cut funding for Illinois and its local government partners have led to court challenges and uncertainty. Additionally, the federal budget reconciliation law – H.R. 1 – will continue to have significant impacts to state governments’ financial positions across the nation.

To my fellow Illinoisans:

The ground beneath our democracy has shifted, and we must wake up before the progress of the last sixty years is completely buried. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to eviscerate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is not just a legal setback; it is a calculated erasure of the history written in the blood of our ancestors. When our elders marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, they weren’t just fighting for a ballot; they were fighting for representation—the right to have a seat at the table where decisions about our schools, our housing, our healthcare, and our economic survival are made.

By dismantling Section 2, the federal government has effectively signaled that Black political power is no longer a protected right, but a "gift" that can be snatched away by partisan legislatures. The facts released by the ACLU are staggering and demand our immediate attention. Their findings confirm that this ruling creates a "nearly insurmountable" legal barrier by requiring us to prove discriminatory intent rather than just discriminatory effect. This is a "permission slip" for states to "crack and pack" our communities, diluting our voices until they are a whisper. For Black Americans, this means a catastrophic loss of representation—a "leap backwards" that threatens to return us to the era of Jim Crow tactics. In Illinois, while we have stood strong, we are no longer shielded by the federal government.