SPRINGFIELD — The “Clean Slate” Act, which could have sealed thousands and potentially millions of nonviolent criminal records in Illinois, had bipartisan support but failed to pass in the final flurry of legislative action this spring, the sponsor says.
Senate Bill 1784 would have required law enforcement agencies to automatically seal eligible nonviolent criminal records twice a year for people who remain conviction-free during designated waiting periods. The proposal is modeled after Clean Slate laws passed in 12 both blue and red states.
Despite swift movement through the House, including votes from five Republicans, the never made it to the Senate floor before the legislative session adjourned around midnight May 31.
“It wasn’t that (the bill) didn’t have enough sponsors, but the Senate sponsor of the bill was working on the budget, and the budget is going to take precedence over everything else,” said Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria, the bill’s chief sponsor in the House, referencing Sen. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, the bill’s Senate sponsor. “He had to focus on his No. 1 job, which is budgeteer.”
It was the third time the legislation has failed to pass in the Illinois General Assembly.
Criminal justice reform advocates say the legislation offers people with criminal records a second chance at a successful life by easing barriers to employment, housing and education — obstacles they say perpetuate punishment long after sentences have been served.
Illinois’ Democrats were able to successfully pass a $55.2 billion budget plan for fiscal year 2026, which was introduced less than 48 hours before the session concluded. Sims acted as the Senate’s lead budget negotiator — a role Gordon-Booth characterized as “extremely stressful.”
While disappointed, Gordon-Booth said she remains optimistic that the legislation she calls “a personal project” could advance during the fall veto session, if not sooner.
Although the General Assembly’s annual fall session is primarily intended to address bills vetoed by the governor, it also provides an opportunity to revisit legislation that stalled in the spring session.
“We could get called back to session because of what’s happening in Washington, so that would provide an opportunity in advance of a veto session,” Gordon-Booth said, referring to ongoing budget uncertainty at the U.S. Capitol where federal lawmakers are sparring over President Donald Trump’s spending bill.
While thousands of Illinoisans with felony convictions are eligible for expungement, or sealing of their records, Gordon-Booth said few follow through because of the “burdensome” petitioning process, which varies by county. She said streamlining it with automation would eliminate long waiting periods, confusion and cost concerns.
According to data analysis from Clean Slate Illinois, an advocacy group dedicated to ending permanent punishments for eligible persons, it would take 154 years to clear the conviction backlog at the current rate of sealing relief.
Algie Crivens III, a member of the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments, said he has friends and family who have experienced this.
“At least in Cook County, the process takes extreme amounts of time. So if you take away the time and money costs to petition, it eases the process for individuals who are already struggling,” Crivens said. “And many people don’t engage in the process in the first place because of fear of the justice system.”
Crivens said the issue goes beyond an inefficient system: He said it creates a double standard — especially when comparing the outcomes for everyday people to those with wealth and power.
Crivens said people with criminal records can’t even work at McDonalds or Burger King or the park district. “How can the rich and powerful still be able to make successful moves in life, with backgrounds? But when the common person cannot do that we have a problem,” he said. “There’s a failure in America.”
SB1784 is the furthest Clean Slate legislation has advanced in Illinois. Gordon-Booth introduced similar measures in 2021 and 2023, both of which stalled in committee. She attributed those earlier setbacks to her leadership in major legislative efforts at the time, including the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act and the ‘Rebuild Illinois’ infrastructure plan.
But Gordon-Booth’s involvement in expungement aid began before 2021, when she started hosting expungement summits in Peoria in 2017. Unlike Chicago’s access to Cabrini Green Legal Aid, most Illinois cities lacked legal support for clearing criminal records.
“The first expungement summit that I did, we had hundreds of men and women who stood in the rain to be able to get in the building at 7 o’clock in the morning,” Gordon-Booth said. “There was a man as old as 76 that I met who said, ‘If I would have met you 50 years ago, I would have had a different life.’”
Most House Republicans voted no
In the four years since Gordon-Booth introduced her first Clean Slate bill, she said she had worked closely with law enforcement agencies and business groups in hopes of building consensus across party lines.
“What I’ve built here over the last six years is a very diverse coalition of actors that are not typically on the same page and on the same side, but they are on the same page here,” she said. “I think that that speaks volumes to the opportunity that we have before us.”
The bill passed the House 81-28, with five Republicans joining Democrats in support of the measure. No Democrats voted against the bill.
Despite those Republicans breaking with the caucus, House Minority Floor Leader Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, said his “nay” vote came down to concerns over long-term funding and oversight.
“I do take the sponsor to word when she said the money will be there,” Windhorst said. “But there is concern that people are going to be promised something and not receive it, like the automatic ceiling, or local governments are going to pick up that cost. We dump a lot on local governments from the state government that increases their costs, seemingly on a yearly basis.”
During debate on the House floor, Windhorst warned that without sustained funding, the cost of implementing automatic record sealing could fall on local governments already facing budget constraints. He estimated the total cost of the measure could reach $18 million, according to estimates from DuPage County.
Replacing the petition-based system with an automated one does come with a price tag, but the figures remain uncertain.
Paul Rothschild, managing director of operations for the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishment — an advocacy group focused on the rights of people with criminal records — estimated the cost could be closer to the range of $5 million to $10 million, based on what other states have spent to implement similar systems. Any state spending would need to be approved by a future General Assembly.
Still, Rothschild argued the upfront expense is negligible compared to the long-term financial benefits.
“No matter what it costs upfront, it will save the state money in the long term. It’ll pay for itself there,” he said.
In the meantime, the Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments is urging its members to continue reaching out to legislators to maintain momentum.
In a June 1 email, sent the morning after the session deadline passed, the group wrote: “We need to lock in just a few more votes during the veto session. Call your Senator to make sure they follow through.”
Gordon-Booth said it’s not a question of if, but when her bill will be back on the table before the end of 2025.
“We’re in a good position. It’s going to get done and we’re going to have a great bill signing,” she said.
Reilly Cook is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
