House votes to save Illinois State Museum

Senate Bill 317, sponsored by Sen. Andy Manar and Rep. Emily McAsey, passed the House with 82 votes. The bill was initiated by AFSCME to provide a legal framework to prevent the Illinois State Museum (ISM) closure and passed the Senate earlier this fall.

The legislation requires that the state continue to operate the Springfield museum and all branch sites and that all sites be open to the public. It also requires that the ISM continue to operate a Research and Collections Center to preserve access to the extensive ISM collections. The governor has 60 days to veto the legislation or sign the bill into law.

As part of his budget maneuvering, Governor Rauner was attempting to close the Illinois State Museum in Springfield and all branch sites, including Lockport Gallery, Dickson Mounds, Rend Lake Arts Center, the Thompson Center Gallery and the Springfield Research and Collections Center. These closures would seriously damage a key component of our state’s heritage and eliminate a vital educational and social resource for our citizens, while doing nothing to address the state’s serious fiscal woes.

Despite the bipartisan rejection of the closure by the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA), the Governor continued to push forward and went so far as to close the museums to the public even while workers are still staffing all the sites.

Employee layoffs were scheduled to take effect September 30, but the governor postponed the layoffs after AFSCME filed suit in St. Clair County Circuit Court seeking a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to halt all state layoffs.