CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Despite scandals that forced former House Speaker Michael Madigan out of office, the leader of Illinois’ House GOP lawmakers said there has still been no meaningful ethics reform.
As Madigan, some former lawmakers and others face corruption charges, state Rep. Tony McCombie said the General Assembly should be approving stricter regulations to discourage future occurrences.
“We need to be transparent,” the House minority leader said. “We need to be open, and we need to be clear. With nothing being done, again, with ethics — and the ethics reform that was done was not sufficient, to the point that the legislative inspector general resigned her position, kind of tells you it was written poorly.”
McCombie said the inspector general needs subpoena power, for example, and she added that new lobbying rules are called for.
“It’s crazy to think that I could be the mayor of my hometown, I could be a state representative, and I could be a paid lobbyist from my hometown all at the same time,” she said.
McCombie, in fact, was the Mayor of Savanna, Ill., but she left that job ahead of becoming a lawmaker.
On budget matters, McCombie said the Democrats listened to some of the Republicans' budget ideas early on, but when the big decisions were made, GOP lawmakers were all but ignored. There are only 40 House Republicans out of 118 House members, so Democrats never need their votes.
McCombie said the answer to their problems is obvious.
“We need some more butts in seats, is what we need,” she said.
The Republican leader, though, said some GOP voters are discouraged about feeling like their vote won’t make a difference.
“How do you get folks excited?” she said. “I have many Republican friends in Chicago, and they’re like, ‘We don’t vote because it doesn’t matter here. Our voice is crowded out.’”
Another part of the problem, she said, is that some people have negative preconceptions about what Republicans stand for — and who they are.
Tensions among traditional conservatives, moderate Republicans and staunch Donald Trump supporters have bedeviled the party for some time.
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