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New President of State Legislatures: 'I Want to Make Sure I’m Not the Last Woman to Get in That Room'

State Senator, Illinois

Toi Hutchinson WIG
Toi Hutchinson
(David Kidd)
Toi Hutchinson’s first brush with electoral politics was a bust. Hutchinson was steeped in local politics and had worked on several campaigns. But when she took on an incumbent in a race for her local township supervisor, she lost. 

But the day after the election, a state senator called and asked Hutchinson to be her chief of staff. A few years later, when the senator won a seat in the U.S. House, Hutchinson took her place. As a Democrat, Hutchinson held onto the seat in her first election as an incumbent, even during the Republican wave of 2010. She’s won re-election ever since.

Hutchinson has seen Illinois’ tremendous financial challenges up close as the head of the Senate Revenue Committee. She’s assuming a national role as well, as the incoming president-elect of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Hutchinson is keenly aware of her role as a role model for other women, and African-American women in particular. “You have to have other women in the room to advocate. If there’s only one woman in the room, it’s easy to get outvoted. I want to make sure I’m not the last woman to get in that room,” she says. 

Read about the Women in Government program and the rest of the honorees.

Natalie previously covered immigrant communities and environmental justice as a bilingual reporter at CityLab and CityLab Latino. She hails from the Los Angeles area and graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English literature.
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