Rosemary Mulligan was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1992. Named by Today’s Chicago Woman (July, 1997) as one of the Top 100 Women Making a Difference and, as a Program Chair of the 1997 White House Women’s Economic Leadership Summit, she currently serves as Minority Spokesman of the Human Services Appropriations Committee and is the House Republican budget negotiator for human service appropriations.

In her 15 years in the Illinois House, she has distinguished herself as a leader in human services appropriations, state budget issues, women’s issues, health care, and early childhood education. She is recognized for her expertise in prescription drugs, problem and compulsive gambling, victim’s rights and health insurance coverage and reform.

Representative Mulligan has sponsored or co-sponsored bills relating to women’s health issues, early childhood education, and adding osteoporosis medications to the Circuit Breaker Pharmaceutical Program, among others. She is the minority spokesman for the House’s Human Services Appropriations Committee, a job she has held for 13 years. She also serves on Healthcare Availability & Access, Elementary & Secondary Education, Registration & Regulation, Healthcare and Healthcare Disparities, DCFS Oversight (Republican spokesman) and on the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.

Representative Mulligan currently serves on the Governor’s Senior Pharmaceutical Assistance Review Committee and the Illinois Immigrants and Refugees Task Force. After her service as a program chair of the White House Women’s Economic Leadership Summit, she represented the United States at the Women in the New Economy Summit in London and Northern Ireland in 1999. In 2005, she visited Israel as a guest of their government. She has served on numerous task forces and boards among which are the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, the Illinois House’s Mental Health Task Force, the Governor’s Work Group on Early Childhood Education (Gov. Edgar), and the Citizens Committee on the Juvenile Court Advisory.

She is a member of the Advisory Boards for Avenues to Independence, which provides assistance, sheltered living and work opportunities for developmentally disabled persons, and Have Dreams, which serves children with autism. Her family moved to Park Ridge in 1955 and she currently lives in Des Plaines. She has two grown sons, a lovely daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.