Illinois ends its spring session without acting on §25F, leaving every opt-in bill dead in committee and the decision to Pritzker

The Illinois General Assembly adjourned its 2026 spring session in the early hours of June 1, 2026, running past its scheduled May 31 deadline, without taking any action on the federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F), the donor-funded K-12 scholarship credit that launches January 1, 2027 with a per-donor credit cap of $1,700. Three separate bills had been introduced to opt the state in, and not one of them received a committee vote or a floor vote before lawmakers went home. The legislature did not affirmatively vote the program down. It simply let all three measures die in committee without a hearing on their merits, which leaves Illinois in a distinct posture among the states still weighing participation.

The two Senate measures never left the chamber's gatekeeping committee. SB3776, filed by Sen. Adriane Johnson (D-Buffalo Grove) on February 5, 2026 under the “Educational Choice for Children Act” banner and written to require compliance with the federal credit for tax years after December 31, 2026, was referred to the Senate Assignments Committee and stayed there through adjournment; co-sponsors were still being added as late as the May 19 to 20 window, but the bill never moved. SB3850, filed by Sen. John F. Curran (R-Downers Grove) on February 6 and drafted to direct the Governor to submit a list of Scholarship Granting Organizations to the U.S. Treasury, met the same fate in Senate Assignments. On the House side, HB4099 from Rep. Tony McCombie (R), which referenced the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Section 25F, was first read and referred to the House Rules Committee on October 15, 2025 and never advanced from there.

With no enabling legislation enacted, the practical question of whether Illinois participates in 2027 now rests with Gov. JB Pritzker rather than the legislature. §25F is structured so that a state's participation flows from the governor submitting a list of approved Scholarship Granting Organizations to Treasury; in the absence of a statute compelling or barring that step, a governor can elect into the program administratively. Treasury's published mechanism for a state to signal participation ahead of the launch year is an executive Advance Election (IRS Form 15714), so a Pritzker-led opt-in for 2027 would most plausibly run through that route. That framing is our reading of how the federal structure interacts with Illinois's now-stalled legislative track, not a step the Governor has announced; as of adjournment he had not committed either way, and Illinois remains listed as undecided on our Illinois state page and the participation map.

The June 1 outcome moves Illinois past the op-ed and advocacy phase we covered when the public debate intensified in May and into a concrete legislative result: a Democratic-trifecta state where lawmakers declined to take up the question at all, deferring entirely to the executive. That distinguishes Illinois both from the divided states that have used a veto-override path into §25F and from the states where a governor has moved first. It also leaves the door open in either direction, since nothing the legislature did forecloses a future administrative election or a fresh bill in a later session. Prospective donors, families, and Scholarship Granting Organization founders watching Illinois can track the mechanics of the program on our learn pages and find participating-state organizations in the SGO directory; for now, the Illinois decision belongs to the Governor's office, which has said it is still reviewing the program as it awaits the federal regulations expected later in 2026.