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Toi Hutchinson


Toi Hutchinson served as an Illinois Senator, representing the
40 th  District from 2009 to 2019. During her time in the Senate,
Hutchinson championed a variety of causes including protecting
women and children from violence, modernizing the state’s tax
structure, and legalizing cannabis. Prior to leaving the Senate, she
served as the 46 th  president of the National Conference of State
Legislatures. Toi is an original co-sponsor of the Cannabis Regulation
and Tax Act (CRTA), the most equity-centric law in the nation to
legalize adult-use cannabis. The CRTA promotes equity and invests in
the communities that suffered through the war on drugs, serving as a
model for the legalization and decriminalization of cannabis. In 2019,
former Senator Hutchinson was appointed by Governor JB Pritzker
as the Senior Advisor to the Governor for Cannabis Control.   
 
Toi earned a Bachelor of English degree from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a law degree from Northern Illinois University College of Law. She resides in Olympia Fields with her husband, with whom she shares three adult children.