How Illinois 59th House District candidates differ on term limits

Both candidates for the Illinois 59th House District seat agree term limits should be enforced, but Democrat incumbent Carol Sente and Republican challenger Dawn Abernathy differ on who should face those term limits.

Abernathy, a Mundelein village trustee since 2013, said she is for term limits for government officials across the board.

The Republican candidate voted for enforcing a 12-year term limit on appointed commissioners in Mundelein in a close 2014 vote.

"If I am for term limits at a federal level, I'm for term limits at a state level, I have to be for them at a local level," Abernathy said.

Sente, who has held office since 2009, supports term limits for party leaders.

"I filed that bill twice," Sente said. "I have lost privileges and gotten in trouble for that bill and asked by (speaker of the House Mike Madigan) to explain why I filed that bill."

Sente said she would only consider term limits for state legislators if it was part of a "grand negotiating bargain" that included other items she finds important.

"I worry about when you term-limit legislators that the staff and also the lobbyists and the executive branch has greater control," Sente said.

Ideally, Sente says, term limits would happen naturally with the Fair Map Amendment and the overturning of Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that removed restrictions on independent political expenditures.

Abernathy also supports the idea of the Fair Map Amendment, which would have asked voters to decide if an independent commission could redraw political boundaries in Illinois, instead of the lines being drawn through a system that favors the party in power. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld a judge's ruling in July that the amendment was unconstitutional and couldn't go on the November ballot.

"Primaries go uncontested; that's not giving the people a real voice," Abernathy said. "It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, people should have a choice, and they should be given a good choice."

The 59th District includes parts of Buffalo Grove, Gurnee, Lincolnshire, Long Grove, Mundelein, Vernon Hills and Waukegan.