Probably not the homecoming he expected.
An Illinois bill making former President Barack Obama’s birthday a state holiday failed to pass the state’s house of representatives on Tuesday. The bill was six votes short of getting sent to the state senate.
The proposed holiday fell on August 4. State buildings, including schools, would be closed on the day.
“President Barack Obama, he did great work for the state of Illinois and our country, and I believe we need to do our part in preserving that history,” Rep. Sonya Harper, a cosponsor of the bill, said.
Republican opponents of the bill noted that other prominent politicians from Illinois, like Ronald Reagan, do not have their own holidays.
The governor’s budget office estimates that state holidays cost $3.2 million in personnel expenses and another $16 million in lost productivity.
Still, not all is lost for the former president. Chicago is slated to be the home for Obama’s library, and another bill would label part of Interstate 55 as the “Barack Obama Presidential Expressway.”