If you were following the debate Thursday – or, really, over the past year – over a bill which removes cash bail in pretrial detention in Illinois, you may get the idea Republicans would settle for nothing short of a straight-up repeal of the “pretrial fairness” portion of the Safe-T Act, passed two years ago.
The no-cash-bail provision goes into effect Jan. 1, but the mission of the just-concluded 2022 fall veto session in Springfield was to refine the bill to allay concerns of police and prosecutors. One new provision, for example, expands the number of crimes for which a defendant can be held. Another lays out that a judge can order someone held if they pose a threat to the “community.”
None of it worked on Republicans, none of whom voted on the retrenched bill Thursday.
Outside the Capitol, opponents changed their stance to “neutral,” failing to impress State Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro), who said the state’s attorneys who have spoken to her simply call it better, but still bad. “Not all state’s attorneys were included in this.”
Another senator, Neil Anderson (R-Andalusia), called the bill a “leftist” proposal, the sort of thing which continues to “drive a once-great state into the ground.” That remark led Sen. Scott Bennett (D-Champaign) to accuse Republicans of time-traveling to two years ago, when the Safe-T Act was a different bill.
Summing up Democrats’ position, State Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria) said, “You can bring a more humane process to all of those who are involved in the system, and you can support law enforcement at the same time.
“There is nothing that comes through this body that is perfect.”
The legislature has scheduled a lame-duck session after New Year’s. The 103rd General Assembly is sworn in Jan. 11, 2023.