Proposed bill would require Illinois high schools to offer voter registration

CHICAGO, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) — A proposed bill bearing the name of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson would require high schools to offer a voter registration opportunity for all eligible students graduating from Illinois high schools.

House Bill 4339, also known as the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. Young Voter Empowerment Act,  had 28 co-sponsors, all Democrats, when it cleared the House Ethics and Elections Committee unanimously on March 18.The lead sponsor, state Rep. Kimberly Du Buclet, D-Chicago, said the bill is intended to increase youth voter registration rates.

“This bill is nonpartisan, meaning it’s not about picking a party or picking a candidate. It’s just about getting people involved,” Du Buclet said. “It’s not about Democrats, it’s not about Republicans. It’s just giving our students the information and helping them get registered to vote early.”

Du Buclet said she plans to speak to Republicans to see if she can gain bipartisan support.

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But some in the GOP said the party is reluctant to add more unfunded mandates to school districts. Rep. Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore, said in an interview he also thought the act was “somewhat duplicative” since Illinois provides an opportunity for everyone to register to vote when they visit driver’s service facilities for their license.

“All I hear from schools on a bipartisan basis is ‘stop with the mandates,’” Keicher said. “‘We need to teach kids and you keep throwing additional things on our plate.’”

The measure does not provide funding or any guidelines for its implementation, leaving some to worry that school districts could make registration drives partisan.

Keicher added he’s not sure the bill would affect turnout.

“I’m a firm believer in voting and registering to vote,” he said. “I think everybody who is legally registered should vote, but our problem is turnout, not registration.”

According to a Tufts study released in April 2025, 41% of Illinoisans aged 18-29 voted in the 2024 presidential election. Nationally, Illinois ranks on the lower end for voters participating from that age group, with Minnesota at the highest at 62% and Oklahoma at the lowest with 33%.

A companion bill in the Senate, Senate Bill 1786, is awaiting a committee vote.

Support for the Bill

Chicago Votes, a nonpartisan nonprofit, supports the act. Frederique Desrosiers, the policy and advocacy director at Chicago Votes, said a strength of the legislation is that it applies to all of Illinois, which addresses some of the gaps in voter engagement efforts.

“One of the reasons why I think this bill is so important is because a lot of times voter registration efforts focus … on downtown Lakeshore campuses, and a lot of times young people who live on the South and West Sides aren’t really folded into the conversation and not really encouraged and engaged,” Desrosiers said.

Franklin Hughes, a freshman at Dominican University and a student leader at Chicago Votes, said he supports the act and emphasized the importance of high schools offering students a chance to register to vote on school grounds.

“Voting is a gateway to having a voice in decisions that impact young people’s lives, and yet, many of us want to engage and don’t always know how or when, and that’s why it’s so important that schools and youth spaces become trusted places,” Hughes said. “This bill meets young people where we already are and gives us a real pathway to participate in our democracy.”

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Andrea Durbin, Chief Executive Officer at Illinois Collaboration on Youth, said that if the youth do not vote, those in power may not prioritize their needs since voting is a method for constituents to communicate their concerns.

“We need to make sure, especially if young people are exercising that right and that power, (that) if they flex that muscle, people will pay attention,” she said.

Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Legacy

Jackson, who died on Feb. 17, was a national voice for civil and voting rights and a civic leader based in Chicago for six decades. In 1972, Jackson organized voter registration drives and encouraged Black Americans to vote.

Former Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton attended his public memorial in early March. Obama said during his speech that Jackson helped create the political climate for what would be the future president’s campaign success.

“It was because of that path that he had laid, because of his courage, his audacity, that two decades later, a young Black senator from Chicago’s South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate of the presidential nomination,” Obama said.

Du Buclet said Jackson’s advocacy for youth voter registration and legacy in the civil rights movement encouraged her to sponsor the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. Young Voter Empowerment Act.

“The Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. was such a trailblazer in fighting for voting rights, particularly for children, for young people,” Du Buclet said. “One of the things that was his vision was that students graduated with a diploma in one hand and a voter registration card in the other hand. That was part of my inspiration for the bill, just to try and fulfill his vision and keep the voting rights vision and efforts going forward.”

Amy L. Wong is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and fellows in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.