West Cook News

A bill to repeal English as the official state language of Illinois was introduced in the House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez (D-Cicero).

House Bill 1560 will amend Section 20 of the State Designations Act to repeal English as the official state language in Illinois. The bill doesn't state why the State Designations Act needs to be repealed and does not state the reason why the state shouldn't keep English as its official language.

Currently, 30 states have English as their official state language. The other 20 states have no official state language, aside from Alaska, which has several native languages.

Nearly 80 percent of Illinoisans speak English as their primary language, while 13.2 percent speak Spanish, which is a total of 1.6 million people, according to Statistical Atlas. Several other languages make up the remaining percentage.

The bill was referred to the Rules Committee on Feb. 1 after it had its first reading in the House of Representatives. It was filed with the clerk by Hernandez on Jan. 30. The Rules Committee will now debate on what to do next.