SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Dave Koehler and the members of the Underground Railroad Task Force put forth their statewide plan to connect existing local projects and new projects to create a cohesive history of the Underground Railroad in Illinois, while establishing new educational and tourism opportunities.

“Despite nationwide efforts to restrict education about our country’s history of racism, Illinois remains committed to shining a light on our past so we can move forward,” said Koehler (D-Peoria). “Our bipartisan initiative will shed light on Illinois’ historic ties to the Underground Railroad, and honor the brave individuals who fought against slavery and oppression so many years ago.” 

The task force – created through legislation led by Koehler – has spent the last year meeting to devise a strategy for sharing, growing and celebrating the history of the Underground Railroad in Illinois.

SPRINGFIELD – As the lead sponsor of the nation’s first law protecting child influencers from financial exploitation, State Senator Dave Koehler is celebrating California joining Illinois in passing legislation ensuring young content creators will earn fair financial compensation for the use of their image.

“Children everywhere deserve to be protected from exploitation on social media—not just those who live in our state,” said Koehler (D-Peoria). “I am excited to see California follow Illinois’ example by codifying protections for kid influencers and establishing guidelines so the young people featured will be able to access money they earned from this content as they get older.”

Earlier this year, Koehler’s measure, Senate Bill 1782, went into effect. The law requires parents or guardians that feature a minor in at least 30% of their content that is earning at least $0.10 per view to create a trust account for the minor, where they will deposit at least half of the earnings made from a video the minor is featured in. The initiative was championed by a high school student in Koehler’s district, Shreya Nallamothu, who noticed child influencers going viral on social media and was concerned that their parents could be pocketing all of the profits from the child’s content creation.

PEORIA – State Senator Dave Koehler secured nearly $250,000 to enhance four adult library and literacy programs in Peoria and Bloomington.

“In the current information age, strengthening your literacy and comprehension skills is more important than ever,” said Koehler (D-Peoria). “This grant funding will ensure local programs can continue to offer programs to improve literacy, which can be transformative for people in our district and our community as a whole.”

The grants were awarded by Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian Alexi Giannoulias, who has awarded nearly $22 million for library services and $6 million for literacy programs throughout the state.

The goal of these grants is to enhance online catalogues, support day-to-day operations, expand interlibrary loan programs and equip vision-impaired individuals with narrations of newspaper content. The literacy grants are designed to promote basic reading, math, writing and English language skills.

PEORIA – To enhance much-needed transportation improvements across the state, State Senator Dave Koehler joined the Illinois Department of Transportation in announcing nearly $9.5 million for 20 organizations to support their planning and developing efforts, including $300,000 for the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission.

“Before breaking ground on transportation projects, it’s important for local groups to have completed research on the impact of these developments on the local ecosystem, infrastructure, and more to prevent potential issues,” said Koehler (D-Peoria). “This investment will allow for many local projects around the state, including in Peoria, to complete this research more efficiently, allowing for the projects to commence and result in economic growth.”

Administered by IDOT using $7.5 million in federal funds, the grants are designed to advance the objectives of the agency’s Long-Range Transportation Plan. Among the criteria considered were projects that implement asset-management strategies and performance-based planning and programming, as well as activities that grow and support economically distressed areas.