* Sun-Times editorial…

Six years ago, a woman in Downstate Springfield, Billie Aschmeller, took out a $596 short-term loan that carried a crazy high 304% annual interest rate. Even if she paid back the loan in the two years required by her lender, her total bill would exceed $3,000.

Before long, though, Aschmeller fell behind on other basic expenses, desperately trying to keep up with the loan so as not to lose the title to her car. Eventually, she ended up living in that car.

Aschmeller regrets she ever went the payday and car title loan route, with its usury-high levels of interest, though her intentions — to buy a winter coat, crib and car seat for her pregnant daughter — were understandable. She is now an outspoken advocate in Illinois for cracking down on a short-term small loan industry that, by any measure, has left millions of Americans like her only poorer and more desperate.

For years, as she has told the Legislature, she felt “like a hamster on one of those wheels.”

A bill awaiting Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signature, the Illinois Predatory Loan Prevention Act, would go a long way toward ending this sort of exploitation by the financial services industry, and there’s little doubt the governor will, in fact, sign it. The bill, which would cap interest rates at 36%, has strong bipartisan support. It was approved unanimously in the House and 35 to 9 in the Senate.

But two hostile trailer bills — HB 3192 and SB 2306 — have been introduced in the Legislature that would greatly water down the Predatory Loan Prevention Act, defeating much of its purpose. Our hope is that those two bills go nowhere. They would create a loophole in how the annual percentage rate is calculated, allowing lenders to charge hidden add-on fees.

The House bill is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jonathan Carroll. The Senate bill is sponsored by Republican Sen. Sue Rezin.

* Mike Miletich…

A Democratic state lawmaker hopes to make payments for childcare services easier on families struggling to get by. Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) says Illinois families living in poverty should only have to pay $1 per month for child care.

The Pritzker administration lowered childcare payments for eligible families to $1.25 for the first two months of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ford wants to make this emergency idea a law. His proposal for a $1 monthly co-pay would only be in place for families with income at or below 185% of current federal poverty guidelines.

Ford says families should be able to send their children to child care and keep more money to pay bills and put food on the table.

“We hope that we respect the frontline workers that have carried this state during the pandemic and realize how important it is to make sure that every child has access to high-quality child care,” Ford explained.

98,000 children enrolled in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) in December. Still, advocates say participation in CCAP is down significantly. In fact, data from the Department of Human Services showed a 45% decrease for infants and toddlers and a 35% drop for preschoolers in the program. Advocates feel permanently reducing the co-pays to a dollar will help more families return to childcare providers. Some say it could also allow parents to work throughout the day.

* Press release…

Two bills threatening to weaken the nation’s strongest biometric information privacy law will get a hearing on Tuesday in the Illinois House Judiciary – Civil Committee. The proposals, House Bill 559 and House Bill 560, effectively gut the meaning and enforcement of the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), adopted unanimously by both legislative chambers a little more than a decade ago. The effort to reverse the law comes after court decisions in recent years that have held large companies like Six Flags and Facebook accountable for collecting and using the biometric information of Illinois residents.

“BIPA has worked to protect the biometric information – like face prints and fingerprints – of Illinois residents,” said Sapna Khatri, advocacy and policy counsel for the ACLU of Illinois. “This information is incredibly sensitive because it can never be changed. At a time when other cities and states are moving to ban dangerous biometric technology like facial recognition, this is not the time to reverse course on these important privacy guidelines we have in place in Illinois. Indeed, these guidelines are seen as a model for other states. The Committee should stop these measures in their tracks.”

BIPA is straightforward. It simply requires a company to inform someone in writing when biometric data is being collected or stored. And BIPA requires written consent in order for the company to collect, store of use the data. Because the law allows an individual to bring a legal claim against any company that violates the provisions of BIPA, it has been used in recent years to win judgments for violations against Six Flags, Facebook and other companies.

Together, the two House measures would undo all of these protections. The bills redefine what is biometric information so that some of our most intimate, private data is no longer covered. The measures also eliminate any protections for employees, allowing companies to collect and store their information without meaningful information or consent. And the bills end the ability to bring cases in court against violators, leaving the enforcement to government agencies that are not positioned to punish violations – including the massive ones we have seen in recent years.

“This is dream legislation for companies that exist to collect and monetize our information,” added the ACLU’s Khatri. “It removes any meaningful requirement to comply with BIPA. The message is clear – if you cannot comply with the law, just use the legislature to remove the requirement.”

“Our privacy in Illinois should not be treated in such a cavalier fashion.”

The two bills are expected to come up for consideration at a Committee Hearing that begins at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 9. The hearing will be held virtually in Virtual Room 3 of the Illinois House.

Both bills are sponsored by House GOP Leader Jim Durkin.

* Mark Maxwell…

Republican state senator Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) won praise from several of his social media followers for proposing the state transition to “paper ballots only,” with many of them voicing distrust in the security of elections. […]

The first-term state senator who challenged Governor Pritzker’s Coronavirus executive orders in court launched a primary bid for governor last month.

One commenter suggested if the state doesn’t follow Bailey’s proposal, “this coming election will be stolen from you!!”

A month after November’s election, in a video posted to his Facebook page, Bailey called the idea that former President Trump should concede defeat to then President-elect Joe Biden “appalling.” […]

Illinois already requires election officials to keep a permanent paper record of every ballot. While most voters use paper ballots, there are some exceptions where voters use technological assistance to pick their preferred candidates.

“There are some where they do use touchscreens, but that produces a paper receipt,” Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich explained. “There is a paper record for every single vote that’s cast in Illinois. Not all of them are with pen on paper, and I don’t know how that would work, because disabled people need to use screens.

“There are people who cannot write on a paper ballot,” he said. “Visually impaired people can use audio cues to guide them through a ballot on a touch screen. That wouldn’t be possible under this bill.”

Sheesh.