Editorial: Welcome to 2024 — and some new Illinois laws to keep you in line

In Illinois, where unintended consequences are part of life, New Year’s Day is the perfect time to predict how effectively the legislation that is about to go into effect will address old problems without creating new ones.

More than 300 new state laws take effect in Illinois on Monday. They mostly reflect Democratic priorities and address such varied topics as school library book bans, car theft and “fertility fraud,” as well as an end to adoption fees for dogs and other pets that make life easier for military veterans.

Here are a few of the new state laws, with our quick take on their varied worth:

House Bill 1540: Smoke-free means vape-free too. Perhaps a measure like House Bill 1540 was inevitable as Americans have increasingly turned to nicotine gum and other alternatives to smoking, such as electronic cigarettes, also known as vapes. The new bill expands the state’s laws that prohibit smoking in public spaces by including the use of vapes in public places and within 15 feet of building entrances.

Quite right too.

If this new law strikes smokers who are trying to become ex-smokers as too intrusive, there is some consolation: Nicotine gum is still allowed, at least for now.

House Bill 1199: A new state day of remembrance. Only 16 states and the territory of American Samoa still observe the second Monday in October as Columbus Day, in which government offices are closed. That’s a sad trend for defenders of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who sailed here under the Spanish flag.

But a law proposed by state Rep. Anthony DeLuca, a Chicago Heights Democrat, and the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans in Chicago offers reasonable compromise. House Bill 1199 designates the month of October each year as Italian American Heritage Month.

That strikes an unequal but understandable balance with Indigenous Peoples Day, which President Joe Biden initiated in 2021 as a national day to be held on the same day as Columbus Day.

Senate Bill 380: To curb “fertility fraud.” For years, unwitting victims have been shocked to discover after looking into their DNA and family histories that their parents were not who they thought they were. In recent years, at least 50 doctors in the United States have been accused of fraud in connection with donating sperm in the last several years, The New York Times reported in 2022.

Now Illinois victims will be able to bring action against those health care providers, thanks to a new law sponsored by state Sen. Dave Koehler, a Peoria Democrat who has worked to raise awareness of the problem.

Illinois Senate Bill 380 provides a civil cause of action for fertility fraud against health care providers and doctors who knowingly or intentionally use their own sperm without the patient’s informed written consent.

That seems more than reasonable to us.

House Bill 2500: A break for veterans’ furry friends. Veterans adopting dogs or cats will no longer have to pay a fee, thanks to a new law championed by state Sen. Meg Loughran Cappel, a Shorewood Democrat who sponsored the bill, which limits fee-free adoptions to once every six months.

This sounds like a win-win both for veterans and adoptees willing and able to improve their owners’ well-being and ease their transitions back into civilian life.

“It’s a small way to thank, appreciate, honor and show our support for the sacrifices veterans have made,” Loughran Cappel has said, and we concur.

House Bill 2789: Banning book bans. House Bill 2789 understandably has generated nationwide attention. Promoted enthusiastically by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, no doubt with an eye on his growing national profile, it is the first law in the nation to ban book bans.

Pushed by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is also the state’s librarian, and signed in June by Pritzker, the law is intended to “encourage and protect the freedom of libraries and library systems to acquire materials without external limitation and to be protected against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials.”

As a standard, it requires that libraries and library systems that want to receive state grants adopt either the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights or some other similarly appropriate model to prohibit the practice of banning books or other materials.

We support this new law while noting that attempted book banning in Illinois is not confined to right-wing groups, even though many Democrats seem to think so, and that such a law should protect all points of view and books progressives find offensive. We also believe that some library books are not appropriate for all ages, parents have the right to monitor what their minor children are reading and it behooves ethical librarians to respect those relationships.

That said, the protesters who mob library boards and other educators tend to be less interested in education than in demagoguery to pursue their own agendas — as the threat to free speech and academic inquiry never ends.

House Bill 2431: No more Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls on the road. The reckless abuse of communications technology doesn’t stop with drivers who insist on texting behind the wheel, even though that’s already punishable by law.

House Bill 2431 expands the prohibition to include drivers who use electronic devices to participate in videoconferences, with one eye on the traffic and another on a colleague’s intriguing backdrop. All reasonable Illinoisans surely can agree nobody should be Zooming in the fast lanes of the Kennedy Expressway.

Keep your eyes on the road! And, truly, we wish all of our readers a very happy new year.

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