95th District State Representative Avery Bourne is hopeful for bipartisan work going into 2018. With the issues Illinois still faces, she says bipartisanship will be essential for the state moving forward.

Bourne says although 2018 is an election year, she is encouraged by what she is seeing in her daily work.

Bourne says working across the aisle continues to be a huge necessity as Illinois continues to grapple with its financial state.

Bourne says she is working on some tweaks to the school funding reform bill passed in 2017, and her main objective for the coming year is to help downstate coal power plants compete with plants in the northern half of Illinois.