While visiting Alton last week, House Minority Leader Tony McCombie gave a recent news interview, where she commented on her leadership role and the end of legislative session in the Illinois House.
McCombie said “she never wanted to be chosen for any position just because she is a woman. But she is both happy and surprised to have that role.”
“To be the first is certainly an honor,” she said. “Hopefully (it) motivates other folks to strive to be in a leadership role, regardless if it’s politics or business or education.”
McCombie also shared her take away from her first term serving as leader in the Illinois House, including the state budget process, which ultimately produced a Democrat backed $50.4 billion spending plan.
“It is another budget filled with broken promises, accounting gimmicks, and a lack of structural reforms to address the systemic out-migration of Illinois families,” she said. “There’s several things in the budget that brings it out of balance.”
She continued to say that the Republican caucus was essentially shut out of this year’s budgeting process, something she described as “very typical,” although she had hoped it would be different.
“We couldn’t even get past shared priorities,” she said. “And in the final two weeks, it just all fell apart.”
Read more from the article here.