where she represented the 22nd district for ten years. Illinois State Treasurer In the middle of a term as state senator, Topinka joined the Illinois State Treasurer race in 1994 and won the election. She was reelected in 1998 and 2002. As state treasurer, Topinka cut a deal to allow hotels that were owned by indicted Springfield power-broker Bill Cellini to pay $10 million to settle their debts which totaled $40.3 million. This deal was quashed by Attorney General Jim Ryan who stated that the hotels were worth more than the $10 million for which Topinka had attempted to settle the debt. Illinois gubernatorial campaign On November 7, 2005, Topinka announced that she would not seek re-election as state treasurer—instead, she entered the gubernatorial primary, hoping to challenge Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich. The Republican primary was deeply divisive; her tenure as Party chairman destroyed her support from the conservative wing of her party, and it was feared that her pro-choice and positive gay rights positions would be detrimental to her standing with the same conservatives. In December she announced that she would join forces with DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. In February 2006, the candidates for the Republican nomination for Illinois Governor began running their first TV ads for the March statewide primary election. Rival candidate Ron Gidwitz's advertisements, attacking Topinka, were rebuked in the same week by the Illinois Republican Party: "In an unprecedented action, the Illinois Republican Party has officially rebuked the Gidwitz campaign for this ad because the Party found that the ad violates the Party's "Code of Conduct," which was enacted to police proper conduct among Republican candidates." Later in February, candidate Jim Oberweis, another rival for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, started a series of attack ads against Topinka for television markets that were even more widely criticized, mostly for using "fake" headlines on the images of actual Illinois newspapers. These ads, like Gidwitz's ads, also came under review by the Illinois Republican Party. Because of the controversy generated, several television stations withdrew Oberweis's ads. On March 21, 2006, Topinka won the Republican nomination with 37 percent of the vote. On November 7, 2006, she lost the race to Blagojevich. Illinois Comptroller Topinka was a candidate for the office of Illinois State Comptroller in the 2010 election, facing conservative radio host William J. Kelly and Orland Park