When you’ve followed, studied, and reported on the Chicago Bears and Illinois political scene for as long as I have, then you probably know better than to get your hopes up about something big coming down the pipeline. But with that being said, we have something to keep an eye on when it comes to the Bears’ stadium project.
These tweets grabbed my attention:
I’m also hearing floor vote on the Bears/PILOT bill in the House this week, per source. Wednesday makes sense as attendance tends to drop on “getaway” days. Of course, things could always blow up in caucus. And in any case, the Senate isn’t back until next week. #twill t.co/ehuUYpjclm
— Brenden Moore (@brendenmoore13) April 20, 2026Bears Stadium Vote in Illinois Could Come on Wednesday
A pair of boots-on-the-ground reporters in Springfield hearing that a possible vote on Bears stadium legislation could come as early as Wednesday is significant. This isn’t to say we’ll have a finalization of the project, its costs, or anything of that nature. But a vote on legislation will get us one step closer to figuring out if the team’s next stadium will be in suburban Arlington Heights or across state lines in Indiana at a site near Hammond.
Reporting from WGN News has the Illinois legislature set to consider a bill that would freeze property tax assessments on the site of the team’s proposed stadium project at Arlington Park. This would pave the way for the team and state to work out a PILOT (Payment-In-Lieu-Of-Taxes) agreement. That would represent a huge win for the Bears, who have been trying to find workarounds to get a lower tax rate on the property it paid more than $197 million to purchase in 2023.
This update comes about a week after Illinois Governor JB Pritzker shared an update on a possible Bears stadium deal, which was more encouraging than anything I’ve heard from the state on this matter. And that bit of news came on the heels of a report that the league’s stadium committee was reportedly set to meet with the Bears after the 2026 NFL Draft to gather updates and information on where the team stands in its journey to find a new football home. For what it’s worth, the NFL could vote on a Bears stadium project as early as the spring owners meetings on May 19. Getting to that point would likely require a favorable vote before that date.
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Of course, even getting to a vote doesn’t mean the Bears would be close to finalizing a decision on a stadium deal.
“We need to make sure that if the Chicago Bears go to Arlington Heights, that my vote means that we support all of Illinois, but we also protect Chicago,” State Rep. La Shawn Ford (8th District) told WGN. “That means that that property, Soldier Field, there should be some type of support for what happens at that spot.”
The give-and-take game-within-the-game stuff when it comes to the political jockeying in Chicago and throughout the state is far more fascinating than I’d care to publicly admit. However, I’ve long been fascinated by the “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” stuff that happens when deals like this get done. Logically, it’s understandable that representatives of constituents near Soldier Field would ask for something in exchange for allowing the Bears to leave their backyard. Based on my cursory reading and understanding of the bill, it isn’t just something that would benefit the Bears. I’ll be curious to read the bill in full when the time comes.
At a minimum, it feels like we are closer to a finish line than we are to the starting line. That isn’t much of a bar to clear. But when you’re dealing with the McCaskey family and Bears president Kevin Warren attempting to walk a political tightrope in Illinois, steps toward progress are better than the alternative. You know what they say, “Slow motion is better than no motion.”
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