It is good that we have already implemented term limits and that we have the
right to legislate by initiative although sometimes the courts make it
difficult.
July 8, 2009
Seven Hundred Terms in a Row?
Ya gotta love Lou Lang. Any public servant who can manage to exude vast
indifference to the public's disgust with endless political corruption has
something going for him.
As a state representative in Illinois, he has had a front-row seat to the
constant corruption sordidly and melodramatically symbolized by former Governor
Rod Blagojevich's taped attempt to sell Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat.
Like the disgraced governor, Lang favors brazen cynicism in the face of
criticism.
After Blago got the boot, the new governor, Pat Quinn, set up an Illinois
Reform Commission to study the corruption problem. The reform proposals ranged
from the dubious to the . . . modest.
For example, the commission proposed term limits to combat political monopoly.
But it proposed term limits not for all lawmakers, only for legislative
leaders. And the cap? A rather generous 14 years.
Illinois voters won't get even that, let alone a better deal, until they have
the right of citizen initiative and can impose term limits themselves.
Yet even a 14-year maximum is way too stringent for the likes of Mr. Lang.
After the commission issued its report, Lang rushed to assure the beleaguered
populace of Illinois that if House members “want to elect Mike Madigan for 700
terms in a row, that's our business.” Yeah! Get lost, citizens! Mind your own
business!
Gotta love him.
Okay, maybe not.
This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob is President of Citizens in Charge and the Citizens in Charge
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The opinions expressed in Common Sense are Paul Jacob's and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Citizens in Charge or the Citizens in Charge Foundation.
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