Illinois lawmakers left numerous options open to stop the Chicago Bears from leaving for Indiana as they entered the final day on Sunday of the spring legislature in Springfield. That includes a potential stadium in Chicago.

Illinois State Senator Bill Cunningham, a top negotiator on legislation intended to allow the Bears to negotiate tax certainty in their effort to build a stadium in Arlington Heights, told reporters Saturday night that lawmakers were working on finding a way to put together a bill that would keep the Bears in Illinois.

“We’re talking over those options with the caucus,” Cunningham told reporters in Springfield. “We hope that it results in some sort of bill to be filed [Sunday] morning. But there’s still some things we’re working through.”

While Cunningham said a lot remains on the table during the final day, he did make some concrete statements about what will and won’t happen.

The first was that a megaproject bill that would allow the Bears to make a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) wouldn’t have enough support to pass Sunday. Lawmakers originally advanced the megaprojects bill out of the House Revenue and Finance Committee at the end of February. The Illinois House passed a heavily revised version of it in late April.

But there have been plenty of questions about the megaprojects bill since it made its way to the Senate. Lawmakers questioned how it would impact property taxes in surrounding communities as well as many other aspects of the bill.

Cunningham said those questions are why he didn’t think the Bears-backed bill would have enough support to get through before the session ended Sunday night.

“The same sticking points are there that have always been there,” Cunningham said. “Discomfort in the caucus with the Bears’ proposal regarding the property tax breaks. We’re having a difficult time working through that. We also have members of the Chicago caucus. we’d like to find some sort of path where the city of Chicago would also have the ability to compete for a stadium. Those are the pressure we’re working through.”

Part of the problem is that Chicago lawmakers aren’t open to vote for a bill that would help the Bears earn tax credit in order to leave the city.

City lawmakers have pushed back against the bill even as it passed the House last month. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson visited Springfield in recent weeks to help the cause to keep the Bears in Chicago.

The Bears have repeatedly said over the past few months that they’re only considering two options to build their new stadium: Arlington Heights and Hammond, Indiana.

“I think there’s always been from day one, there has always been a Chicago problem with the Bears proposal,” Cunningham said. “The Bears have had a proposal on the table for a couple of years that asks Chicago members of the legislation to vote for a tax credit that would encourage a business to leave Chicago. Legislators generally don’t do that. That’s always been an obstacle to pass this bill.”

Despite the Bears’ hesitation, Cunningham re-opened the possibility of a Bears stadium in the city. He said city lawmakers have made it clear that they would support a bill that would pit them on an “equal plane” with any other city in Illinois to negotiate a new stadium deal.

There’s been a back-and-forth between the Bears and the city of Chicago over the past few weeks about whether the Bears went back to the city about potentially staying in the city. Despite the Bears’ repeated stance that they’re only considering two options, Cunningham said there have been more talks to stay than they’ve let on.

“I would point out that it’s been established that the Bears have met repeatedly with the city of Chicago over the past several months to talk about this,” Cunningham said. “So although they’ve publicly said that, there have been talks between the city and and the Bears.”

Illinois lawmakers have been under heightened pressure to get a deal done that’s earned national attention since December. That’s when Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren opened up the team’s stadium search to include Northwest Indiana. Indiana lawmakers passed and signed a bill into law in February to incentivize the Bears to move to Hammond, Indiana, just over the Illinois-Indiana border.

Any bill would help the Bears finally end a six-year search that started in 2021 when the team agreed to purchase the Arlington Heights property on the site of the former Arlington Park racecourse. There have been twists and turns throughout the process, including pivots back to Chicago before going back to Arlington Heights and now Northwest Indiana.

The Bears and NFL have said they’d like the team to make a decision about where they’ll build their new stadium during the late spring and early summer. Sunday night’s deadline looms for Illinois lawmakers to come up with a plan and pass it through the Senate and the House.

But Cunningham didn’t think Sunday night had to be the end if lawmakers didn’t get a bill passed.

“I don’t know if it’s a deadline,” Cunningham said. “We would like to get something completed before we leave town [Sunday] night.”