UPDATE !!

Responding to press coverage (e.g. SunTimes editorial), hundreds of letters and calls, Senate President Harmon's office is mediating between the sides on the anti-retaliation bill.

From those negotiations, Senate and House staff have drafted compromise language that is imperfect, but is a step in the right direction, and has the support of the leading resident and consumer advocates.

The language has been inserted into HB 2474, and has only until Tues, Jan 7 to pass both houses of the legislature.

Adding your voice today will help.

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Fear of retaliation for speaking up about abuse or violations silences residents, allows problems to fester, and helps owners skimp on care and maximize profits.  

For-profit owners of for-profit facilities have been spending big, lobbying to derail reforms that would restore freedom of speech to facility residents.

This proposed reform is based on proven anti-retaliation laws in rental housing that have been on the books in several Illinois cities and counties for many years. Facility owners are spending millions lobbying Senate President Harmon and other policy-makers to allow their impunity to continue in facilities they own.

Facility residents are asking for your voice, to send a message that is too loud to ignore.

Many Senate leaders are standing with the people. Harmon says he agrees illegal retaliation against facility residents is a problem that should not be tolerated, but owners should not be held accountable (disregarding 'respondeat superior,' a core principle behind much civil rights and environmental justice law)

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See here for some of the groups calling for ending illegal retaliation, and holding owners accountable.