Willow the cat disappeared from her home. Jamie and Chris Squires thought they would never see her again. Little did they know that five years later, thanks to a microchip they installed, she would be found about 1,800 miles away.

State Senator Tom Cullerton (D-Villa Park) is working to ensure dog and cat owners are reunited faster by passing House Bill 4029.

This initiative requires animal shelters to scan a dog or cat within 24 hours of being taken into a shelter.

Report details compensation abuses, administrative bloat at state colleges and universities: Cunningham

Months of work by members of the media and the Illinois General Assembly have culminated in a special report detailing costly administrative practices at our state’s public universities and community colleges. The report brings to light growing administrative costs and generous executive compensation packages that have helped fuel tuition increases for Illinois students.

"This report found that many public colleges and universities have been too quick to award lavish benefits to their executives and increase the number of administrative employees they assign to non-instructional post," State Senator Bill Cunningham said. "While these practices are never welcome, they are particularly troubling during difficult budgetary times and when college tuition rates have grown faster than any other expenses faced by middle class families."

Possession of small amounts of cannabis, 15 grams or less, would be punishable by fines of no more than $125 under a proposed law the Illinois Senate sent to the governor’s desk today.

“There has been much talk this year about criminal justice reform and being smarter on crime,” said Senator Michael Noland (D-Elgin), the proposal’s Senate sponsor. “With this measure the Senate and House take an important step in the right direction. The benefits we will see from this plan are innumerable. Today, we become smarter on enforcement of the law while saving judicial resources.”

SPRINGFIELD – A proposal to help people escape the horrors of human trafficking passed the Illinois General Assembly today.

The measure requires the state government to post signs warning about the dangers of human trafficking and display the phone number of the national human trafficking hotline in high-traffic areas, such as truck stops, bus stations, train stations, airports and rest stops.

“We need to make sure that human trafficking phone number is posted in places victims might actually see it,” said state Senator Julie Morrison (D-Deerfield). “Public transit hubs are among the few places they actually see.”