With the §25F rules out, Illinois churches turn up the pressure on Pritzker: a South Side rally, the Catholic Conference, and a letter read in parishes

Gov. JB Pritzker said for months that he could not decide on the Education Freedom Tax Credit until Treasury wrote the rules. The rules came out on October 1, and his office's answer since then has been that it is reviewing them. Over the following four days, the push to opt in moved from Springfield statements to church pulpits.

Sunday on the South Side. On October 4, Bishop Larry D. Trotter, senior pastor of Sweet Holy Spirit Church of Chicago, hosted a gathering at the church on South Chicago Avenue to call on Pritzker to opt in. Organizers put the turnout at more than 500 South Side residents, along with faith, education, and community leaders. The pitch was about public school students as much as private ones: "Students need tutoring, technology, special education services and other learning supports today more than ever," Trotter said. Bishop Antonio Rocquemore of Powerhouse International Ministries Church framed it as a choice about where the money goes: "The choice is whether Illinois positions its own students to benefit from these new resources."

The Catholic Conference. Two days earlier, on October 2, the Catholic Conference of Illinois issued its own call. "This is a win-win for nearly all Illinois children," executive director Robert Gilligan said. "Eighty percent of Catholic families send their children to public schools, and this program could help fund existing shortfalls in public schools, such as transportation, tutoring assistance, educational supplies and special education services. In addition, Catholic school students could also benefit with much-needed scholarships for tuition." (The statute's expense list, borrowed from Coverdell education savings accounts, names academic tutoring, special needs services, and transportation required or provided by a school; Treasury's separate guidance on qualified expenses is still to come.) In the week before, Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago circulated a letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich asking parishioners to urge the governor to opt in, warning that if Illinois stays out, its taxpayers "may send as much as $1 billion for educational services in other states." That figure is the archdiocese's estimate.

Why the money argument works the way it does. The credit is federal, so an Illinois resident can claim it whether or not Pritzker opts in, by giving to a scholarship organization in one of the 30 participating states. What a non-participating state loses is the scholarships: under the rules, each scholarship goes to students in the state that listed the organization. That is the point every speaker in this campaign is making. Illinois has been here before; its own tax-credit scholarship, Invest in Kids, ended when the legislature let it expire at the end of 2023.

The other side. The Illinois Education Association opposes participation, and Pritzker has said he is worried about discrimination and accountability. Under Treasury's temporary rules a participating state cannot add SGO requirements tougher than the federal law, which removes one middle path a Democratic governor might have taken. This is the same pressure that has been building since August, when a Chicago Board of Education member asked Pritzker to opt in against his own board's resolution.

The clock. To take part in 2027, Pritzker has to file the advance election (IRS Form 15714) by January 1, 2027, and Illinois then has until February 15, 2027 to send the IRS its list of scholarship organizations (full calendar). Organizations that want to be on that list can do the federal groundwork now with the free SGO Builder; the Illinois page tracks the decision.