REASON RETURNS TO THE LAND OF LINCOLN: Illinois Legislature Passes Asset Forfeiture Reform.

The vote came on the heels of an investigative report from Reason earlier this month showing lower-income neighborhoods of Chicago were hit hardest by asset forfeiture.

Reason’s report, analyzing more than 23,000 property seizures over the last five years, was cited by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in a letter to the Chicago Tribune Saturday urging Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to sign the bill into law. Foxx wrote that civil asset forfeiture’s disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities was an “injustice.”

The bill, approved unanimously in the state senate and with only one dissenting vote in the house, would raise the standard of evidence for forfeitures from probable cause to a preponderance of evidence and bar seizures under $500 in many drug cases.

It would also abolish a requirement of residents challenging seizures that they pay a 10 percent bond on the estimated value of their property to file a petition, and expedite hearings for owners claiming innocence.

Kudos to the Illinois legislature and to Reason’s C.J. Ciaramella.