Legislative Action Special Section                                                       

Some significant issues were addressed to a certain extent — prison reform and child welfare, to name a few — but many others were put off until action becomes absolutely necessary.

It wasn't clear at Illinois Issues' press time whether a special session was in store for lawmakers before they reconvene in October, especially as Chicago schools had not found money to fill a gap in funding. But it looked as though the veto session was going to be used to tackle at least a few fairly important topics, such as the state's need to expand vehicle emissions tests in the Chicago and Metro East St. Louis areas.

And with more state officials announcing their intentions for next year's elections — including the several lawmakers eyeing higher office — legislative gatherings will be filled with political posturing. So along with analyzing the agendas of legislative caucuses, individuals' motivations will be added to the mix as they become more clear.
Jennifer Halperin

One certainly can't fault Rep. Thomas J. Dart (D-28, Chicago) for a lack of foresight.

Early in the spring legislative session — before the damning headlines condemning the state's Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) for the April death of 3-year-old Joseph Wallace — the freshman representative had targeted the department in what became known as the "child's best interest" proposal. Signed into law in late June with an immediate effective date, it requires courts of law to consider minors' best interests in determining where a child should live, either temporarily or permanently.

This philosophy marks a departure from the traditional goal in Illinois of family preservation. Those pushing the measure said there simply had been too many cases in which a child was sent home to a potentially dangerous — and sometimes fatal — environment instead of to a foster home or other alternative. In assigning blame for those heartbreaking cases, critics pointed fingers at everyone from DCFS caseworkers to juvenile court judges. In the big picture, society's degenerating family structure was seen by many as the culprit.

After Joseph Wallace's death April 19, allegedly at the hands of his mentally ill mother after judges had returned the child to her care three times, both houses of the General Assembly passed the legislation's final form unanimously. "A lot of people were very happy to kill this legislation — that or have it go nowhere — until Joseph Wallace died," Dart said.

One section of the law moves toward giving foster parents rights and authorizes them to ask during court proceedings that minors be placed in their custody. The law also requires the governor to appoint an inspector general to investigate possible misconduct by DCFS employees, foster parents or service contractors, similar to the watchdog post in place at the state's Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. Gov. Edgar named Denise Kane, a former administrator at the Cook County Public Guardian Office, to the DCFS inspector general position in early May. (See Illinois Issues, June 1993, page 35.)

"I see all this truly as [a first step]," said Dart, a former staff attorney for the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee who previously served a four-year stint as Cook County assistant state's attorney. "There are some people who have deluded themselves into thinking we've made great strides this session. We've made some good steps, but we've got our work cut out for us."

A task force on child endangerment was formed this spring as a subcommittee of the House Judiciary I Committee to find ways to improve children and family services throughout Illinois. It is scheduled to meet through the summer. "I hope this is going to be a starting point that can build momentum going into [next year's] spring session," Dart said. The task force will ask for an ongoing audit of DCFS and also will review the increasingly controversial "Family First" program, which stresses family preservation above other considerations.

Task force members plan to take field trips around the state to visit hospitals where abused children are treated and courthouses where their cases are heard, as well as foster homes. Hearings were scheduled to allow interested parties to air their gripes about the system. Dart said he hopes working groups involving child care professionals will be formed to generate ideas on specific

50/August & September 1993/Illinois Issues

changes needed in the child welfare system.

One eventual change he said he'd like to see is a streamlining of parental termination procedures. "Adoption has to be a focus," Dart said. "We have to get to the point where we either return children to their parents or make them [eligible] for adoption. We can't have them bouncing around from one foster family to another. We're taking them from the most fragile [home life] situations and then injecting them into a system to languish. Then we wonder why our prisons are filling up, why the crime rate goes up. It all snowballs. There's no surprise there."

Gov. Edgar also signed into law a bill, effective January 1, that will make permanent the record of anyone convicted of a sex offense against a minor. The measure passed unanimously in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House. Current law allows such records to be expunged or sealed five years after the offense occurs.

Another measure became the cause-of-the-month when legislators convened their spring session in January while media hype was at its height over the holiday trip taken by David and Sharon Schoo, who left their two young daughters home alone for nine days while they vacationed in Acapulco. The "home alone" bill created the criminal offense of child abandonment and endangering the life or health of a child.

Despite its attendant hoopla, it amounts to little technical change in penalties from current law. Violation would be considered a Class 4 felony, punishable by one to three years in jail and/or a fine of up to $10,000. As of mid-August, the bill awaited the governor's signature.

"I wasn't really trying to change the penalties," said Dart, the measure's sponsor. "The problem is, the law has been on the books since the late 1800s and the way it was written it was almost impossible to find anyone guilty of it. The Schoo case brought to light the fact that there was a problem with the law. We just wanted to make it enforceable."

The Schoos, who moved from St. Charles to Geneva this year, since have given their daughters up for adoption. *

August & September 1993/Illinois Issues/51