In 2014, Bruce Rauner won the top job in Illinois politics leading a term limits ballot initiative. The initiative garnered 600,000 voter signatures, more than enough to go to voters.
But House Speaker Michael Madigan, the one man running Illinois (into the ground), recruited a henchman to file suit. After an appellate court struck the issue from the ballot, a cowardly state supreme court refused to even hear the case.
That didn’t stop Rauner. As governor, he tried to force a compromise that would get legislators to put term limits on the ballot for voters. But legislators are not going to budge until they, including Mr. Madigan, feel threatened by voters.
So, what’s Mr. Rauner on to now? He’s working with Turnaround Illinois to blanket the state with television spots about term limits. The ad buy is already over $1 million, much of which may be coming from Rauner, says Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller.
Miller complains that the legislature won’t ever pass term limits and that, even if legislators did miraculously propose a vote, the limits don’t kick in until “House Speaker Madigan will be 86 years old, and he could still run for a state Senate seat.”
True. Madigan, already the longest serving speaker in state history, would get to serve the newly enacted limit, which is prospective, not retroactive. Still, that’s hardly an argument against term limits.
Writing in Joliet’s Herald-News, Miller dubbed the effort “pretty much solely political and more than a bit phony.”
Political? Sure. What part of politics isn’t?
Phony? Come on. It’s not Gov. Rauner holding legislators accountable that’s phony — it’s our so-called representatives who crookedly ignore the people.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
1 reply on “The Big Phony”
Are state legislators in Illinois subject to recall? Just a thought.