Monday, October 5, 2026Peoria, Illinois — Whiskey CitySubscribe
WhiskeyCivic

State of Illinois

59 senators and 118 representatives make Illinois law. A witness slip is how you get into the record on a bill.

An engraving of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield: a long classical building under a tall dome.
The Illinois State Capitol, SpringfieldEngraving from The American Cyclopaedia, 1879. Via Wikimedia Commons

What it does

The General Assembly writes the state laws that override local rules on everything from zoning to criminal justice to how your taxes are spent. Statewide offices — Secretary of State, Attorney General, Auditor, Treasurer — run elections, enforce consumer and environmental law, and audit the books.

Who runs it

  • The Illinois General Assembly is 59 senators and 118 representatives (Illinois Constitution, Article IV), all elected from single-member districts. Each Senate district is divided into two House districts.
  • Representatives serve two-year terms; every seat comes up every two years. Senators serve a repeating 2-4-4 pattern, so the Senate never turns over at once.
  • Your area is covered by State Senator David Koehler (46th District), whose district covers parts of McLean, Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties. House districts in the region include the 73rd (Ryan Spain), 87th (Bill Hauter), 91st (Sharon Chung) and 92nd (Jehan Gordon-Booth). District lines run through Peoria several times over, so check before assuming.
  • The 104th General Assembly expires in January 2027.

When and where it meets

Meets
The Assembly sits roughly the first five months of the year — the spring session. Committee hearings are posted on the House and Senate schedules and are open to the public.
Where
Springfield. Chamber galleries are on the fourth floor of the Capitol; committee hearings happen elsewhere in the building.

How to be heard

  1. File a witness slip. This is the mechanism almost nobody knows about.A witness slip records your position — for, against, neutral — on a specific bill at a specific committee hearing, and becomes part of the official record. File one at ilga.gov from the Senate or House Schedules.
  2. Beat the deadline, and it differs by chamber.From the ILGA's own guidance: Senate — until the end of the day of the hearing. House — until the hearing concludes. Each hearing needs its own slip, even for the same bill.
  3. Register at my.ilga.gov first.A registered account removes the CAPTCHA, saves your details, and lets you edit a slip while the hearing is still active — which is impossible if you filed while logged out. Witness slips cannot be deleted at all, so check before you submit.
  4. You can testify remotely.After filing a slip, use my.ilga.gov's "Submit Remote Testimony" and email the committee staff to arrange a Zoom hearing. For written testimony the chambers differ: the Senate wants hard copies sent to the committee chair; the House runs a remote process.
  5. Write to your legislator — mail works.The Assembly's own advice: identify the subject as precisely as possible, explain the effects of the proposal, state your position and say why, and write your name and address clearly so they can answer.
  6. Vote registration deadlines — those come from the State Board of Elections.The statutory election calendar on this site is that body. To register you must be a US citizen, 18 or older on Election Day, and an Illinois resident for 30 days.
The part nobody tells you

The Illinois Governor has powers no US President has. Beyond signing or vetoing, the Governor can strike individual items from an appropriation bill, cut their funding, or propose amendments — all without vetoing the rest. That is why an Illinois budget fight is not the same as a federal one. Overriding takes three-fifths of each chamber (a majority, to restore a cut).

Official pages