Topics ranging from Illinois’s response to continuing aggressive and legally questionable tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to senior programs and even the issue of legalizing “human composting,” came up July 17 when some 40 people gathered at the Oak Park Arms Retirement Community to hear State Sen. Don Harmon and State Rep. Camille Lilly. The two Democrats presented their review of the recently concluded legislative session in Springfield, answered questions while addressing constituent concerns.
Also on the list of topics were affordable housing, consumer protections, pensions and animal cruelty.
Looming over it all was the political polarization in Washington and Springfield, and the anticipated economic pain of looming funding cuts to a host of state programs Washington has long helped fund.
Harmon and Lilly said the $55.2 billion FY 2026 budget, which not one Republican voted for, was “a good budget in a bad year.” They touted the fact that the state had balanced its budget for the seventh consecutive year, was continuing to address pension obligations, and had set aside money to help cover expected gaps in federal funding.
Democratic lawmakers budgeted $2.7 billion for public safety, including money for recruiting and training 200 additional Illinois state troopers. With social safety nets threatened by federal cuts including access to health care, Lilly said, she was gratified that more than $600 million had been appropriated for “safety net” hospitals that underserved communities rely upon for medical care.
In addition, there were appropriations as large as $700 million for the Community Care Program that provides in-home care services for seniors, to an additional $8 million for the state’s Home Delivered Meals program.
The two senior legislators heard concerns over the looming revenue losses to Illinois from the Trump administration’s aggressive cuts to funding across numerous categories, including Medicaid and Medicare, the SNAP food assistance program and education.
When an attendee asked about the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the Trump administration to go forward with the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, Harmon replied, “This crystalizes the dilemmas we’re facing.”
“The question for us is, when the Department of Education goes away, do the federal dollars go away? We’re trying to figure that out,” Harmon said, adding, “You can’t predict the unpredictable.”
Harmon expressed frustration at the fiscal burden placed on Illinois and other large Northern and western states that pay more into the federal system than they get back.
“Illinois is a donor state. We send so much more money to Washington than we get back,” he said. “Ironically it is some of the red states that are recipient states.”
He said many people also don’t really grasp the facts of who will be most hurt but defunding social programs.
“I think there are some people in Washington who think that if they cut food programs (and) Medicaid, they’re gonna hurt a lot of Black people, and a lot of Brown people,” Harmon said. “They’re gonna hurt a lot of white people (since) most of the people on government support programs are white folks in rural America.”
After a pause, he said, “I don’t know what this reality TV show is about, but it’s not one I want to be part of.”
When an audience member asked about Republican criticism of local law enforcement in northern Illinois not working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) to arrest suspects, Harmon said the Illinois Trust Act, which was signed in to law in 2017 by Republican Gov. Bruse Rauner, has been routinely mischaracterized.
“Some of the folks in Washington like to call (Illinois) the ‘sanctuary state,’ or something that sounds sinister,” Harmon said. “All it really says is that the federal ICE agents can’t come in and make our local police officers help them on things in which the local police don’t have any role.”
Local law enforcement, he said, “should be controlling our streets, worrying about traffic, arresting people who’ve committed crimes.”
“If (ICE has) a court ordered warrant for someone’s arrest, they can work with local police,” he said. However, he said, that does not include “people in masks, without badges, just coming in and arresting people,” as happened in Los Angeles.
Harmon mocked the “flip flopping” by the Trump administration and “let’s arrest farm workers, let’s not arrest farm workers, let’s go back to arresting farm workers.”
“Our economy depends on immigration,” he said. “It always has.”
Lilly said the political polarization in Springfield is puzzling. “The other side of the aisle votes no on everything,” she said. “And I’m like, ‘You don’t want these things?’ They vote no on every budget that spends money for education, that spends money for healthcare, spends money for housing, spends money for senior services.”
“We do that with our budget every year, and the other side of the House votes no.”
Harmon said he likes many of the Republicans he works with, despite all the disagreements, but can’t fathom their reasoning.
“I asked my Republican colleagues ‘How do you vote no on that,” said Harmon. “It’s really the Goldilocks defense. It was too hot, it was too cold. It was too big, it was too small, it was too thick, it’s too thin. They can always justify a no vote based on one particular thing.”
“We need to get past the theatrics, the performative part of politics,” Harmon said. “Unlike some other people in politics, I’m not in charge of a reality TV show that appears to be what’s happening in the White House.”
“We have a responsibility to govern, and to put aside those differences.”
“The important part is that we stay focused on what is needed for the citizens,” Lilly said, “and that is what we do in Springfield.”
