How does “session” work in Illinois?

What happens in an average legislative session

Have you ever wondered what actually happens in Springfield when all of those politicians are busy making laws? We did. So now we’re breaking it down for you.

What is the General Assembly?

Just like the U.S. Congress, the Illinois Legislature is made up of two chambers: a House of Representatives (with 118 members) and a Senate (with 59 members). Together they’re called the Illinois General Assembly. Their main responsibility is to propose, debate, and enact new legislation that, once approved by both chambers and signed by the Governor, become state laws.

Legislative Session

When the Illinois General Assembly gets together in Springfield to work, it’s called a legislative session. Each state has different rules and schedules for their legislative sessions, Illinois operates with “biennial legislative sessions” meaning each legislative session lasts two years, always starting in January after a general election (the general elections happen in November every even-numbered year). Don’t forget to vote!

Each year of a legislative session can be broken into several distinct time periods: regular session, special session, veto session, and sometimes lame duck session. First, the regular session occurs between January and May/June of each calendar year. There are two regular sessions per legislative session, and bills proposed in the first year of the legislative session can finish making their way through the process in the second year of the session. No wonder it can sometimes seem like it takes forever to get a bill passed in Illinois! During the regular session, the House and the Senate meet separately in Springfield to work on new legislation, or bills.

If a bill is approved by both the House and the Senate, it is sent on to the Governor, who then has sixty days to respond. In any given year, the Illinois Legislature often approves close to a thousand bills — and the vast majority are approved in the last few weeks of the term. This means that a whole lot of bills are sent to the Governor all at once at the end of May or in early June, and that’s why we see the Governor’s response to most bills over the summer. The Governor can either approve the legislation, or take one of four types of veto actions. The Governor can issue a full veto, a line-item veto, a reduction veto, or an amendatory veto.

Illinois Legislature’s Response to Veto and Veto Session

If the Governor issues any kind of veto, the Illinois General Assembly always has an opportunity to respond. They can either override it, or make changes to the bill in line with the Governor’s suggestions. While in session, each legislative chamber (the Illinois House and the Illinois Senate) has a maximum of fifteen days to try to override the Governor’s veto, starting with the first chamber that passed the legislation. But since a lot of these vetoes often happen over the summer, after the Legislature’s regular session ends, that time limit for overriding a veto is often postponed until the General Assembly meets again in the fall for a special session, commonly and aptly called a veto session.

Special Session

Other than veto session, the Governor or the Legislature can also convene a special session outside of the usual January to May time period, in order to address a specific issue. During the special session, other legislation can also be proposed and debated, and it often is.

The leaders of both legislative chambers, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, have to agree to call a special session. But the Governor can also act alone to call a special session. This happened, for example, in 2017 when the Governor called the Legislature back into session at the end of June to try and pass a budget agreement after the state had been operating for two years without a formal budget.

Lame duck session

And finally … the lame duck session. If, after the general election in November, the Legislature has unfinished business and needs to meet before the start of the next session, it’s called a lame duck session.

In case, like us, you were wondering where that name came from, we’ve referred to politicians who are on their way out as “lame ducks” since the mid-1800s in the U.S. But the term was first used in Britain to describe stock-brokers who couldn’t pay their debts. Appropriate?

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