* The Tribune…

Representing a largely rural district outside the Quad Cities in northwestern Illinois, she will be the first woman to lead a House caucus for either party, a distinction she downplayed a day after the vote. McCombie told a throng of reporters in her new statehouse office that “women get things done” but said she doesn’t want to be defined by her gender.

“You shouldn’t be chosen because you’re a woman,” she said. “You should be chosen because you’re the right person.”

Welch, the state’s first Black House speaker, congratulated her “as a fellow history maker” and said he hopes her selection signals a fresh start for Democrats and Republicans in the chamber to work together.

“Obviously, we have some sincere disagreements, but I also respect Leader McCombie’s commitment to those who have elected her to serve,” Welch said in a statement.

Welch’s words belie the reality that Democrats don’t need much help from McCombie’s side of the aisle to get anything done. She’s taking over a caucus badly battered in the recent election, when House Democrats increased an already sizable 73-45 supermajority to a 78-40 edge.

* WGEM…

McCombie has served in the house since 2017 and led the House Republican campaign organization during the 2020 election cycle.

The Savanna Republican worked with Democrats in the past on plans to improve the state’s finances and address safety concerns within the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

McCombie still hopes to see a proposal pass to charge people over 21 with an aggravated battery if they attack DCFS employees. The legislation honors the legacy of DCFS caseworkers Deidre Silas and Pam Knight who were murdered while conducting home visits over recent years.

“As Leader, I might actually get that bill passed now. We’ve been fighting for Pam Knight for a long time,” McCombie said Wednesday. “We’ve done it in the House and then it dies in the Senate. With the tragic loss that we had here in Springfield, we thought we were going to get that through with the Senate and the House again and we did not.”

* Greg Hinz…

Essentially, she faces the same question Republicans do nationally: How to make the GOP competitive again in increasingly blue suburbs, be they Wheaton; Mesa, Ariz.; Philadelphia’s Main Line towns; or Orange County, Calif. The problem is particularly acute here, as McCombie takes over leadership of a caucus that lost five of its 45 seats on Nov. 8 and now is a super-superminority whose very relevance is in question in a body with at least 78 Democrats.

So what does McCombie bring to the table?

The woman from Savanna in northwestern Illinois is, with no offense to outgoing state GOP leader Jim Durkin, something new for a party that clearly needs change. She’s the first woman ever to head a House caucus, and that can’t hurt. Equally important, she’s not from the Chicago suburbs like almost all GOP leaders for the past half-century have been. She’s from downstate, potentially enhancing her ability to explain to rural voters that now compromise the Illinois GOP’s backbone exactly why they need to give suburban Republicans the ability to follow the first rule of politics: Represent your district, not an ideology.

That’s task one: improving internal communication within the caucus. Or as McCombie put it in an interview, “What we need to do is explain the benefits of someone who will vote with you 90% of the time as opposed to a Democrat who will vote your way 0% of the time.” In that vein, there will be no caucus rule requiring members to vote a certain way, McCombie said.

Task two: developing a small-donor contributions base that’s not dependent on the whims of some deep-pocketed official, like Bruce Rauner, or wealthy business type, as in Ken Griffin or Dick Uihlein. McCombie doesn’t mention any of them, but putting together a small version of what Democrats have done nationally with ActBlue would be enormously helpful.

* Shaw Local…

“It is extremely unhealthy for us to have this big of a spread between Republicans and Democrats. It’s not good for Democrats and it’s not good for Republicans,” McCombie said.[…]

“Obviously our issues polled very well this election cycle,” McCombie said. “The kitchen table issues everybody talks about inflation, cost, crime. Although, crime didn’t — if you hadn’t been affected by crime it didn’t poll, as well.”

McCombie criticized national media outlets for Illinois voters not trusting Republican Party candidates.

“The media has a big place in that across the nation more so outside. Not necessarily our local newspapers. But, when you are looking especially at the federal side, a large percent of media stories were left-leaning,” McCombie said. “There is a lot of divide between parties and we do have a Democratic president, so often you protect the president that is in place. I think with the extreme messages that have been pushed through media, through social media — I think that’s what scares especially single women. I think that’s what scares them.”

McCombie, who has opposed the implementation of the SAFE-T Act, which will eliminate cash bail from the state’s criminal justice system on Jan. 1, wants to repeal it.

* Peter Hancock…

Known for being more conservative than Durkin, McCombie said she will seek to moderate policies in the state that she says have been driven by the left wing of the Democratic Party.

“In Illinois, it’s not about being pro-life or pro-gun,” she said. “In Illinois, we continue to push the extremes. And maybe that message wasn’t apparent.

“But there would be, in my opinion, no pro-choice Republicans that would vote to repeal parental notification, that would allow abortions up to nine months,” she said. “So I think that’s what we need to talk about in Illinois is the extremes.”

Among her first tasks as leader will be naming the rest of a leadership team. In addition to Durkin stepping down, much of the rest of the House GOP leadership team will be leaving public office at the end of this session.