State Rep. Tony McCombie says Republicans have to reach out to Democrats as she takes over a GOP caucus that was battered in the recent election.
State Rep. Tony McCombie poses for a portrait in Rep. Jim Durkin’s office in Chicago on Nov. 22, 2022. McCombie will replace Durkin as the House Republican leader, becoming the first woman to hold the top legislative position for either party in the Illinois House.
“You shouldn’t be chosen because you’re a woman,” she said. “You should be chosen because you’re the right person.” Illinois’ GOP has alienated many of its traditional, moderate voters with the embrace by many in the party, particularly in southern parts of the state, of far-right ideologies. As the first downstate representative to lead House Republicans since George Ryan 40 years ago, McCombie stressed the need for the GOP to attract new supporters.
“She has shown that she can focus on policy over politics,” said state Rep. Marcus Evans, a Democrat from Chicago and an assistant majority leader in the House.Illinois Republican legislators regularly complain about getting shut out as the Democratic supermajorities in both chambers push their agenda without meaningful opposition.
Democrats had drawn the district in 2011 with the intention of keeping it safely blue, but “changing dynamics” turned it red, said state Rep. Tim Butler, a Springfield Republican who headed the House GOP’s campaign operation in 2016.“I think the Democrats had kind of passed up that district philosophically and Tony did a good job, I think, of identifying with the district,” said Butler, an assistant House GOP leader who is leaving the legislature in January.
McCombie has pushed legislation to make penalties for attacking DCFS workers on par with those for attacking a firefighter or police officer. That bill was inspired by the death of Pamela Sue Knight, a DCFS worker who was badly beaten while trying to take a 2-year-old boy into protective custody in western Illinois in 2017. She died of her injuries the following year.
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