OpEd: Senator Patrick Joyce (December 2024) – As we gather together with our family and friends to celebrate the end of another year, we look back at our accomplishments in 2024. I am proud to count this year as another productive one for the 40th Senate District and our state.
At the beginning of the year, I joined the bi-partisan Illinois Manufacturing Caucus, where we are working together to create more jobs and bring more economic development to our district and our state.
I joined with the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association this fall for its Makers on the Move bus tour where we celebrate good-paying careers that manufacturers provide and the deep roots local success story businesses like CSL Behring in Bradley bring to our region. We will continue to work on policies in Springfield that will encourage more job growth and exciting economic opportunities.
I stand strongly with our agriculture advocates to support the Family Farm Preservation Act to ensure crippling estate taxes do not stand in the way of “passing the torch” for new generations of farm families. This will be a priority for me and many others in the Legislature who support farmers in 2025.
I told you in March about the very personal story behind House Bill 5395, a long-overdue effort that is now law to help provide better health insurance coverage at more reasonable costs. I saw the painful reality of insurance struggles when my son had open heart surgery for a rare condition when he was a toddler, and then when my daughter Katelyn fought valiantly but lost her battle with leukemia.
I am pleased this new law will help more families like mine get the coverage they need without the frustrating delays and denials for essential care.
We continue to work to build on our region’s strengths. The Rivers Edge Tax Credit helps communities around rivers build new economic opportunities, and our new law helps expand the credit to include Kankakee in the program.
Illinois is a national leader in clean energy development. We have created Clean Jobs Workforce Hub sites across the state to train workers for successful careers in this growing industry, and I helped bring the state’s 14th site to Kankakee County to ensure we are at the forefront of this growth.
We were busy throughout the year helping provide state grant funding for necessary equipment for local fire departments and ambulance services, lead service line replacement, open space land development, local job training, and more support for our local schools and their vital career and technical education programs.
I expect 2025 will build on these accomplishments, and I wish all of you a prosperous holiday season and new year.
I urge you to contact me anytime I can help: 708-756-0882, or at http://www.
D-Essex, 40th State Senate District
OpEd: Senator Patrick Joyce (December 2024)
