Daily Herald opinion: A message, but no setback: For Bears project, legislative inaction seems to say more about how rather than where

Competing with a tense budget debate and an impending public transportation crisis, the Chicago Bears could barely muster any attention for their prospective stadium from lawmakers, much less actual legislation, as the final moments of the 2025 General Assembly session wound down.

This was hardly a setback for the project, which the team now says is refocused on Arlington Heights. But it did offer some confirmation of sentiments legislators have been expressing for more than a year.

Whether from the city or suburbs, Democrat or Republican, state officials have little appetite for contributing toward a wealthy NFL team's effort to build a new development.

It will be interesting to see if that philosophy holds as this process deepens. As Sen. Mark Walker told Chris Placek for our story on Monday, a big part of the issue this session was that lawmakers just didn't have the time to think about helping fund a stadium project while they were grappling with more urgent issues.

At some point, it seems likely the Bears will ramp up the pressure and surely will get higher on the legislature's priority list. But for now, it is comforting from a taxpayer point of view to see lawmakers appearing to stand by their oft-proclaimed aversion to providing substantial financial support for a sports franchise’s redevelopment project.

Which is not to say the Bears won’t need or shouldn’t eventually get some help. Indeed, it is hard to envision the $5 billion entertainment-district proposal proceeding without some public contributions.

As Walker, who himself has sponsored a bill focusing on megaprojects like the Bears complex, also told Placek, “I think their real problem is … they still don’t have enough money. It’s a lot of money, and I think they expected some money from the state.”

But just what form those contributions should take still requires a lot more talk and exploration. Meanwhile, lawmakers are wise to remind the team that taxpayer interests are an integral component to the thinking that must go into whatever financial structure is built.

“For my purposes in terms of legislation, I’m not focused on the Bears,” Arlington Heights Democratic state Rep. Mary Beth Canty told Placek. “The Bears go back and forth all the time about where they want to be, and that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. But what really has me thinking is how do we protect the taxpayers and the schools across the state.”

Meanwhile, from a site-selection point of view, it seems likely that unless there's a sudden overwhelming change of heart in Springfield, whatever the General Assembly decides faces pretty much the same political calculus for the city as for the suburbs. City lawmakers have some power to hold up a move to the suburbs and will need some incentives for any legislative action, but they don't have the muscle to force a city project.

So, this spring’s legislative inaction appears to say little about where the Bears may wind up building and much about how they will get the resources to do it. That’s an important distinction, and it’s reassuring to see where lawmakers — at least outside the city of Chicago — are focusing their attention.