“If our solution involves picking the pockets of the poor and wrongly accused, we have more than just a fiscal problem; we have a moral problem.”

SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) has secured passage of legislation that expands and eases access to the legal process for the expungement and sealing of criminal records – a major hurdle for individuals seeking to gain employment and move on with their lives after an encounter with the criminal justice system. The measure lifts a ban on expungement petitions by people with prior but unrelated criminal records, eliminates all fees for juveniles applying for expungements and waives fees for individuals in Cook County who were wrongfully arrested or convicted and now seek expungement.

“For the sake of justice, we must end this practice of charging individuals money to clear their names and move on with their lives when our criminal justice system has concluded they did not commit the crime for which they were arrested,” Collins said. “Illinois is suffering from a shortfall in revenue, but if our solution involves picking the pockets of the poor and wrongly accused, we have more than a fiscal problem; we have a moral problem.”

The fee to petition for expungement in Cook County is $120. Collins hopes to expand her pilot program to Illinois’ other counties, where fees can be as high as $400. House Bill 6328, which Collins worked with Representative Art Turner and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to craft, would waive fees for juvenile expungement requests statewide. There would be no fee for adults petitioning in Cook County when the individual was arrested but then released without being charged, the charges were dropped or a criminal conviction was reversed. According to Sheriff Dart, 19 percent of those detained in the Cook County Jail at any given time are released after the charges against them are dropped. Finally, the legislation allows individuals to petition for expungement of a new arrest or charge, even if they already had a criminal record.

“These reforms speak to the fundamentals of our justice system, which is based on evidence, not assumptions,” Collins said. “Limiting access to those with no prior record is a policy based on stereotypes and fear, not facts. We must reject laws that create a population assumed to be a criminal class – chained to their past arrest records, always under suspicion and perpetually poor.”

HB 6328 has cleared both chambers and now goes to the governor’s desk.

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SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) voted today for legislation she co-sponsored to keep essential social services afloat while budget negotiations continue. The measure, which releases $715 million set aside in a number of state funds for human services, passed the House and Senate today with overwhelming bipartisan support and now goes to the governor’s desk.

“While the fight for full funding is not yet over, today’s action is an encouraging sign and a lifeline extended to a wide variety of vital services for our at-risk youth, our food-insecure seniors and other vulnerable residents,” Collins said. “If the governor signs this measure into law, it will finally provide relief to organizations that have been working without pay to serve the ‘least of these,’ even as they themselves have been held hostage.”

The legislation, Senate Bill 2038, funds Youth Build and other youth employment programs, homelessness prevention and affordable housing, Adult Redeploy programs that help ex-offenders take advantage of a second chance, breast and cervical cancer screenings, meals for low-income seniors and much more.

“Especially as Chicago sees alarming levels of violence this year, it is essential that the governor lend his signature to releasing these resources to keep our young people off the streets and show them a different path,” Collins said. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to build on the progress we’ve made today and achieve sustainable budgets for this year and the next.”

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SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) has introduced legislation to ban auto insurance companies in Illinois from basing their prices on a customer’s credit score. The Senate Insurance Committee heard from advocates yesterday about the role this practice plays in exacerbating existing racial and socioeconomic inequalities and helping fuel the self-perpetuating cycle of poor credit.

“It’s absurd and unacceptable that in Illinois today, a person with poor credit but a perfect driving record pays, on average, substantially more for car insurance than a person with great credit and a drunken driving conviction,” Collins said. “That certainly doesn’t make our roads safer or create incentives for responsible driving, and it makes it even harder for people who are in debt to drive to work so they can get out of debt.”

Consumer Reports magazine and the Consumer Federation of America extensively researched the relationship between credit scores and auto insurance rates and found the following:

• Nationally, people with low credit scores are charged car insurance premiums that are substantially higher – in some cases more than twice as expensive – than people with high credit scores, even when other factors such as age, gender, zip code and driving record are identical

• In Illinois, a person with poor credit and no record of traffic violations pays on average 51 percent more per year for car insurance than a person with excellent credit who has been convicted of a DUI

• Twenty percent of Illinois residents have credit scores considered non-prime (less than 620), but in zip codes with predominantly African-American populations, that percentage rises to 54 percent, and in predominantly Latino zip codes, it’s 30 percent; thus, credit-based insurance pricing disproportionately affects drivers in minority communities

• Twenty percent of surveyed credit reports contained errors that negatively affected scores (this result was duplicated in a Federal Trade Commission study)

• More than half of overdue debt on credit reports is medical debt

“For many Illinoisans, auto insurance is not an optional purchase; it is what allows them to get to work so they can earn income and get out of debt,” Collins said. “A credit score is a predictor – and an imperfect one at that – of a person’s ability to repay a debt; it was never designed to predict driving behavior. The same communities of color hit hard by redlining, subprime mortgages, the recession and the housing crisis are still needlessly paying more for a basic product their residents need in order to rebound.”

California, Massachusetts and Hawaii already prohibit credit-based auto insurance pricing.

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Interested in this issue? Read more about Consumer Reports' car insurance survey.

SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) secured passage today of legislation allowing foreign-born victims of torture or human-trafficking to become eligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and food stamps (SNAP) while waiting on the federal government to process their asylum applications. The process to obtain a visa to remain legally in the U.S. can take months or even years for these individuals, and while they wait, they are not authorized to work or access federal benefits.

“America can take pride in opening her arms to individuals who have been victims of horrific crimes and are seeking a land of safety and opportunity,” said Collins, who has sponsored numerous laws aiding human trafficking victims during her service in the Senate. “We can carry on this welcoming tradition here in Illinois by assisting those affected – many of them women and children – while their cases are being evaluated.”

The average processing time for a T Visa (issued to foreign-born victims of human trafficking) is five months; for a U Visa (issued to those who have been victims of torture or other serious crimes, as well as their immediate family members), the average wait time is 16 months.

Collins worked with the Heartland Alliance, EverThrive Illinois, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the Office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan to draft and pass the legislation, which now goes to the House for its members’ consideration.

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