Bill Text: IL HR0732 | 2023-2024 | 103rd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Mourns the death of former Illinois State Representative Susan Catania.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Passed) 2024-05-03 - Added Co-Sponsor Rep. Suzanne M. Ness [HR0732 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2023-HR0732-Introduced.html

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HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of former
Illinois State Representative Susan Catania, who passed away
on November 27, 2023; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was born in Chicago to John and
Helen (Giffrow) Kmetty on December 10, 1941; she attended
Mother McAuley High School and graduated from St. Xavier
College in 1962, where she earned a liberal arts degree with a
chemistry focus; she married Anthony Edward Catania in 1963,
and they had seven daughters; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania spent a year as a teaching assistant
at Northwestern University; she then went to work as an
information director at a chemical research company on
Chicago's Near South Side; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's path to feminism and public
service began after learning that a younger and less
experienced male colleague was being paid twice her salary;
after several trips to Springfield to testify on relevant
legislation, she decided to seek elective office; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania's legislative service ran from 1973

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to 1983; she represented a nearly all-Black district on
Chicago's Near South Side; she was a Republican in a city of
Democrats and a young mother at a time when very few women, and
even fewer who had children, ran for public office; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania championed the Equal Rights
Amendment, her signature issue; she also supported gay rights,
gun control, and access to abortion and was the first Illinois
legislator to sponsor the Freedom of Information Act; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania sponsored legislation that led
Illinois to a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.;
she helped revise the State's public aid code and provided
emergency state aid for Cook County and Provident hospitals;
in the case of Provident, the first Black-owned and operated
hospital in America, she joined with then-legislator and later
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in co-sponsoring a bill that
saved it from shutting its doors permanently; in all, more
than 50 of her bills became law; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania served as a fellow at the Institute
of Politics at the Kennedy School at Harvard University upon
leaving office; in subsequent decades, she survived breast
cancer and bone cancer and went on to a second career, earning
a master's degree in social work from the University of
Chicago and working for the Illinois Department of Human

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Services until her retirement; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania will be remembered as a feminist,
public servant, and matriarch who challenged political,
social, and gender norms and advocated for communities and
issues long ignored or shunned; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania was preceded in death by her parents
and her husband of 58 years, Anthony; and
WHEREAS, Rep. Catania is survived by her daughters, Susan
Wigsmoen and husband Dave Wigsmoen, Rachel Catania and husband
Levon Karayan, Sara Catania and husband Mark Nollinger,
Melissa Catania, Amy Catania and partner Benjamin Kent,
Annemarie Catania, and Margaret Catania and husband Wesley
Williams; her grandchildren, Andrew Wigsmoen, Alex Wigsmoen,
Sophia Karayan, Remy Karayan, Lincoln Karayan, Genevieve
Nollinger, Lucas Nollinger, Elijah Catania, Grey Catania,
Alice Catania, Francesca Catania, Inertia Catania, and Aviva
Catania; and numerous members of her extended Catania family;
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we mourn the passing of former Illinois State Representative
Susan Catania and extend our sincere condolences to her

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family, friends and all who knew and loved her; and be it
further