Stephanie Kifowit, a 12-year state lawmaker from Oswego, entered Monday the still-growing race to become the Democratic nominee for state comptroller, a post incumbent Susana Mendoza is retiring from for a potential bid for Chicago mayor.
A former financial planner and Marine veteran, Kifowit’s tenure in the Illinois House has included serving on legislative spending panels, and she currently is chair of the House Personnel & Pensions Committee. The comptroller is the state’s top fiscal officer.
“Washington’s a bit dysfunctional these days and chaotic. Frankly, I think that we need a comptroller that has a bit of a backbone. I’ll be your fiscal drill instructor,” Kifowit said in her announcement video on social media. “I’ll bring integrity, strength of character and leadership to the office to stand up for you.”
Kifowit joins a field that includes House colleague, state Rep. Margaret Croke of Chicago, Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim and Champaign County Auditor George Danos. State Sen. Karina Villa of West Chicago is also expected to enter the contest. Croke narrowly won the endorsement of Cook County Democratic slatemakers last month.
Kifowit called herself “one of the few fiscal experts in the General Assembly” and said she has been “the voice of fiscal responsibility since that day I got there.”
In October 2020, Kifowit called for the resignation of then-House Speaker Michael Madigan as the longtime speaker found his continued leadership under fire over a growing federal corruption investigation after Commonwealth Edison admitted to federal prosecutors that it had engaged in a yearslong bribery scheme to curry Madigan’s favor. Kifowit also at the time announced her own candidacy to replace Madigan as speaker. Madigan eventually resigned and was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced in June to seven and a half years in prison.
Kifowit’s bid for speaker was unsuccessful as current House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch was selected to succeed Madigan. But Kifowit continued on in the legislature.
In 2018, Kifowit made a public apology to then-state Rep. Peter Breen of Lombard, a Republican, who cited fiscal concerns in opposing her legislation to offer higher compensation to victims of a deadly Legionnaire’s disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans Home.
“I would like to make him a broth of Legionella and pump it into the water system of his loved one, so that they can be infected, they can be mistreated, they can sit and suffer by getting aspirin instead of being properly treated and ultimately die. And we are talking about our nation’s heroes,” Kifowit said.
Afterward, Kifowit contended her words were misheard, misrepresented, misinterpreted and mischaracterized. But a day later, she offered a formal apology and said, as a veteran, she had felt “very passionate” about the victims of the outbreak.
At the time of her apology, she was a member of then-incoming Gov. JB Pritzker’s transition committee on veterans issues.
Mendoza, the current Democratic comptroller, announced last month she wouldn’t seek a fourth term in 2026. She first won the office in a 2016 special election to fill the unexpired term of the late Republican Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.
Mendoza used the position to sharply criticize one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s fiscal policies, including a dispute Rauner had with Madigan that led to the state going two years without adopting a budget.
During her announcement last month that she wouldn’t run for reelection as comptroller, Mendoza said she was “excited to leave the door open” to challenge Brandon Johnson in what would be her second bid for Chicago mayor.
