SPRINGFIELD — A new law sponsored by Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) will create training programs for young people looking to enter the building trades.
Her measure creates the “Training in the Building Trades Program,” which would award grants to community-based organizations to establish training programs for people ages 18-35 with interest in that industry.
“There is no one-size-fits all career path for young people, so we need to provide them with a variety of opportunities to learn and train for their future,” Martinez said. “These programs will give future trades professionals the tools they need to obtain a good-paying job and to give back to the state.”
Read more: Martinez law to invest in training for building trades
SPRINGFIELD — Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) is continuing her work to ensure all qualified applicants are eligible for professional licenses, regardless of their citizenship status.
“If anyone in our state wants to contribute by working hard and paying taxes, they should not be denied because of where they were born,” Martinez said. “I am glad to continue the work we started last year by expanding the ability for immigrants to apply for professional licenses.”
Martinez passed a law last year ensuring that citizenship is not required for licenses issued by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional or State Board of Education. It also requires the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to allow an applicant to use a taxpayer identification number as an alternative to a Social Security number.
Read more: Martinez law to expand opportunity for professional licenses
SPRINGFIELD — A new law sponsored by Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) will overhaul the manner in which sexual assault investigations involving students are conducted.
Martinez passed the legislation out of the Senate this year as a bipartisan effort to address the issue of educator misconduct in classrooms across the state.
“The importance of protecting our children is an issue we can all agree on, no matter our political party,” Martinez said. “The report released last year was shocking, and I am thankful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for coming together to work on a solution. Students should be able to feel safe at school.”
Lawmakers began working on a solution after a Chicago Tribune article published late last year detailed a series of stories regarding children being harassed or abused during their time as students at Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Read more: Martinez law works to protect students from sexual abuse
SPRINGFIELD — Legislation sponsored by Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) addressing the growing concern of mental illness and suicide on college campuses became law today.
Martinez’s law will require public colleges and universities to make information available to students on all mental health and suicide prevention resources provided by the university.
“We are becoming more aware of the struggles college students are facing,” Martinez said. “They need to be able to readily access help for mental health issues they may be dealing with.”
Diagnoses and treatment of mental health conditions among college students are on the rise, and suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college students.
House Bill 3404 takes effect Jan. 1, 2020.
SPRINGFIELD — Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) joined Gov. JB Pritzker and advocates today as her legislation providing relief from high interest on consumer debt was signed into law.
The bill, which passed both the House and the Senate with bipartisan support, takes two steps to lower the financial burden on Illinoisans struggling with these debts.
First, it lowers the interest rate on consumer debt under $25,000 from 9% to 5%. It also lowers the timeframe in which debt collectors can collect on a judgment from 26 to 17 years, preventing families from being trapped by decades-old debts.
“Debt can be a real, crushing thing that keeps people trapped in a cycle of poverty,” Martinez said. “By making it easier for people to make payments, we are not only making it more likely for the debt to be paid but also helping people move toward financial independence.”
According to the Heartland Alliance, a nonprofit anti-poverty organization, 1 in 3 Illinois residents is in the debt collection process.
House Bill 88 takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020.
SPRINGFIELD — Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez’s measure expanding the ability of schools and future teachers to participate in the Grow Your Own Teacher program became law today.
The Grow Your Own Teacher initiative is a program designed to train people to become teachers in hard-to-staff schools.
“Illinois is dealing with a teacher shortage, so we need to do all that we can to place dedicated teachers in schools,” Martinez (D-Chicago) said. “We especially must work to ensure students at schools that are traditionally hard to staff, like those in low-incomes areas, have the same access to quality education as anyone else.”
The new law will expand the definition of "eligible school" and "hard-to-staff" schools for the initiative to include early childhood programs in which no less than 40 percent of the children it serves are receiving subsidized care under the Department of Human Services' Child Care Assistance Program.
Read more: Martinez law works to place teachers in hard-to-staff schools
SPRINGFIELD — Assistant Majority Leader Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago) released the following statement today as thousands continue to protest Puerto Rico’s governor after leaked text messages uncovered crude, sexist and homophobic remarks made by him and others:
“I’m truly disappointed in the disparaging remarks made by Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello and his allies towards females, members of the LGBTQ community and our beloved island, among other things.
“Let’s be clear, sexist and homophobic slurs don’t have a place in our public discourse and only belittle the positions we’re elected to serve. Our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters are angry, disappointed and feel disrespected by their government, and these feelings shouldn’t be ignored.
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