State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka Has Died

State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, 70, died early Wednesday morning after suffering a stroke on Tuesday.

Topinka died shortly after 1 a.m. at MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, where she was undergoing tests. In November, she won her second term as comptroller, defeating Democratic challenger Sheila Simon.

A colorful, direct speaker with fiery orange-red hair, a ready smile, endless quips and penchant for resale-store shopping, the frugal Topinka was known as a moderate Republican well-suited to minding the state’s finances and checkbook. Before serving as comptroller, she served three terms as state treasurer from 1994 to 2007. Topinka was elected to the Illinois House in 1980 and next to the Illinois Senate from 1984 to 1994.

She played the piano, accordion and guitar, and she spoke four languages: English, Polish, Czech and Spanish. And she raised a son, Joseph.

In 2006, she was the Republican nominee for governor — the party’s first and only female gubernatorial nominee and GOP chairwoman — and ran against the now-imprisoned Rod Blagojevich. During the campaign, she noted that Blagojevich has “little weasel eyes” and couldn’t be trusted. And she was proven right.

“You don’t have to have dirty government,” Topinka said during her run for governor. “I didn’t have it in my House district, my Senate district, the treasurer’s office and, damn it, I’m not going to have it in the governor’s office.”

She often ran against the grain of the Republican Party, describing herself as “meat and potatoes” and “just dependable,” and was unlike any politician in recent memory.

“I don’t know that I was ever the choice of the party regulars,” Topinka said when she ran for governor. “One fellow told me, ‘You are never going to get anywhere. You don’t run with the big dogs.’ OK, well, you know, now, the big dogs are either retired, dead or in prison. So here I am.”

Though she lost that election, an office she sought reluctantly only because she saw how corrupt and abusive the Blagojevich administration had become, she bounced back four years later and won the comptroller’s job.

“She never became embittered after she lost to Blagojevich,” Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno of Lemont told the Daily Herald.

Topinka was born in Riverside in 1944, graduated from Ferry High School (now called Lake Forest Academy) in 1962, attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, graduating in 1966, and worked as a journalist in the western suburbs before becoming a mother, founding her own public relations business, and then entering politics.

Her parents, William and Lillian Baar, were the children of Czech and Slovak immigrants. She had a strong role model in her mother, who started a real estate business during World War II and turned it into a very successful company after the war.

She was divorced in 1981, the same year she entered politics.

‪”Judy was a trailblazer in every sense of the word,” said Gov. Pat Quinn in a statement. “Never without her signature sense of humor, Judy was a force of nature. She left her mark on the state she has called home her entire life. Her leadership improved Illinois and paved the way for countless women in politics.”

When Topinka was elected to the General Assembly, she would note, there weren’t even any bathrooms for women there. As treasurer, she created a program for women to help them learn to manage their finances and launch businesses.

Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner also issued a statement.

“Comptroller Topinka’s magnetic, one-of-a-kind personality brought a smile to everyone she met, and she had a servant’s heart, always only caring about what was best for the people of our state,” Rauner said.

When Topinka won the comptroller’s office in 2010, she told voters she believed it should be consolidated with the treasurer’s office. The comptroller manages the state’s money and cuts the checks to pay the bills. The treasurer invests various state funds to maximize returns for taxpayers. To her, it made sense to put those financial activities in one office and eliminate $12 million in redundancies.

She once likened her job as comptroller to being a “skunk at a picnic.”

But Topinka had a softer side, too. She loved her dogs and fed them McDonald’s cheeseburgers. She loved to dance the polka — and at one GOP gathering even whisked Dick Cheney onto the floor. (He didn’t like that.) Years ago, speaking with Daily Southtown politics writer Kristen McQueary, she shared a story about her son.

“I love ‘Dumbo’ because it has a great moral to it. ... I could watch it forever, except the part where the mother elephant cradles him in her trunk, and she sings to him. I always cry. When my son was going to college, I gave him a feather, just like the mouse gives Dumbo that he holds in his trunk. I said: ‘Here’s your feather. Put it in your trunk and you’ll be able to fly.’ He still has his feather.”

She is survived by her son Joseph, a major in the U.S. Army, daughter-in-law Christina, and granddaughter Alexandra Faith Baar Topinka.