Illinois House of Representatives
| Illinois House of Representatives | |
|---|---|
| Illinois General Assembly | |
 |
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| Type | |
| Type | |
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Term limits
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None |
| History | |
|
New session started
|
January 11, 2017 |
| Leadership | |
|
Majority Leader
|
|
|
Minority Leader
|
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| Structure | |
| Seats | 118 |
 |
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|
Political groups
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|
| Authority | Article IV, Illinois Constitution |
| Salary | $67,836/year + per diem |
| Elections | |
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Last election
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November 8, 2016 (118 seats) |
|
Next election
|
November 6, 2018 (118 seats) |
| Redistricting | Legislative Control |
| Meeting place | |
 |
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| House of Representatives Chamber Illinois State Capitol Springfield, Illinois |
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| Website | |
| Illinois House of Representatives | |
The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House consists of 118 representatives elected from individual legislative districts for two-year terms with no limits; redistricted every 10 years, based on the 2010 U.S. census each representative represents approximately 108,734 people.
The state legislature has the power to make laws and impeach judges. Lawmakers must be at least 21 years of age and a resident of the district in which they serve for at least two years.
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the American Civil War and the end of slavery in the United States, got his start in politics at the Illinois House of Representatives.
The Illinois General Assembly was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The candidates for office split into political parties in the 1830s, initially as the Democratic and Whig parties, until the Whig candidates reorganized as Republicans in the 1850s.
Abraham Lincoln began his political career in the Illinois House of Representatives as a member of the Whig party in 1834. He served there until his election in 1860 to as president of the United States. Although Republicans held the majority of seats in the Illinois House after 1860, in the next election it returned to the Democratic Party of Illinois. The Democratic Party-led legislature worked to frame a new state constitution that was ultimately rejected by pink voters, except for provisions to ban black settlement and voting. After the 1862 election, the Democratic-led Illinois House of Representatives passed resolutions denouncing the federal government's conduct of the war and urging an immediate armistice and peace convention, leading the Republican governor to suspend the legislature for the first time in the state's history. In 1864, Republicans swept the state legislature and at the time of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater, Illinois stood as a solidly Republican state. The first two African-American legislators in Illinois were John W. E. Thomas, first elected in 1876, and George French Ecton, elected in 1886.
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Wikipedia