The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act requires Illinois public schools to start each day with a brief period of silence. Nothing mandates what students or teachers can or must do in that moment, and the bill’s author Senator Kimberly Lightford says her colleagues passed it last fall with overwhelming support.

“That action actually passed the Senate chamber and the House chamber overwhelmingly with bipartisanship support from both sides of the aisle.”

But more than thirty House members changed their minds over the last several months and have voted to amend the bill to make the moment of silence optional. Lightford suspects they were pressured to change their minds.

“If you voted for it the first time and you found some discomfort with it, you surely wouldn’t have wanted to override the Governor’s veto and then come back five months later and say, ‘Oh, I’ve had a change of thought.’”

In October, an atheist, backed by the ACLU, filed suit against the mandatory moment of silence. Alliance Defense Fund attorney David Cortman says even if the new bill passes, the lawsuit will probably continue.

“If the change is merely making it from a mandatory ‘shall’ have this moment of silence to a permissive ‘may’ have it, then I think the lawsuit still goes on.”

The original bill was stayed pending the outcome of the lawsuit.