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| RAUNER: Will he limit his own terms? |
He’s
attempting to bring up the almighty issue of term limits. He wants to put an
eight-year limit on the amount of time any one person can serve in the General
Assembly.
HE
CERTAINLY WOULD hate the idea of Michael Madigan – whose home neighborhood on the Southwest Side has
turned out the vote in his favor to send him back to Springfield for the past
four decades! With three of those decades seeing him as the leader of the
Democrats at the Statehouse.
Not
that I expect this issue to go anywhere. It is one of the talking points that
certain types of people like to bring up because they think it will bring them
voter support come Election Day.
Rauner
letting us see him sign a pledge to limit the amount of time anyone can spend
in the Legislature (enough of a limit that no one would be able to build up any
influence) is nothing more than a move by him to try to get the support of the
mini-minds who usually get worked up about this.
The
fact that, in his statement, he also calls upon Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls
Pat Quinn and William Daley to back him? Another strategic move on his part.
Rauner dreams that people will become incensed at the Democratic hopefuls when
they refuse to go along with his nonsense.
NOT
THAT IT will happen that way. I have no doubt Rauner himself won’t shut up
about this issue between now and the March 18, 2014 primary elections!
Although
I always suspect that the people who back term limits the loudest are the ones
who realize they can’t win any other way than to eliminate the competition.
Which is the big reason why I don’t take the concept seriously.
While
I realize incumbency gives a candidate some advantages (the reason why I don’t
discount Quinn’s chances of being re-elected, no matter how low the polls say
he ranks), I also have seen enough instances of incumbent politicos being
defeated to know it can be done.
Hard
work. That’s what it takes to win an election; not trying to find ways to keep
any serious opponents from challenging you!
SO
RAUNER MAY come up with statements such as, “too many in Springfield are part
of a broken system that puts getting re-elected first and allows the special
interests and government union bosses to effectively own the politicians.”
It
may be true. But it comes across as self-serving from Rauner.
As
far as the chances of term limits being passed (Rauner wants a voter referendum
on the ballot in next year’s election cycle), I’m not convinced it will happen.
I
still remember what happened when the issue came up decades ago – only to fail
because the Illinois Supreme Court determined that legislative term limits are
beyond the scope of issues that voters themselves can force onto the ballot as
referendum questions.
MEANING
THIS IS an issue that the legislators themselves would have to put on the
ballot in order for the voters to consider it.
I’m
not going to challenge Rauner’s ability to bring this issue up during his
gubernatorial campaign. He has a right to make an issue out of any matter that
he deems worthy.
Whether
or not anyone takes him seriously for it is a different matter.
Ultimately,
it will be the voters who will decide which of the gubernatorial candidates
they detest the least and is worthy of a four-year term at the head of Illinois
state government.
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