One-term limit for all 'fiddlers'

Legend has it that Emperor Nero "fiddled" as Rome burned in 68 AD. Today Illinois' legislators are similarly "fiddling" while Illinois crumbles under the burdens of mismanagement, corruption and politics as usual. Illinois is bankrupt - nearly $13 billion dollars in debt, unable to pay its bills or maintain its roads. Its cutting human services, closing state parks, releasing prisoners from overcrowded prisons, spending tens of millions of dollars yearly to maintain prisoners on death row (instead of just locking them up and throwing away the key).

Home foreclosures, bankruptcies and unemployment are at an all-time high, school Districts 200, 203 and 204 are collectively owed $15 million, senators are being evicted from their offices, we're facing the closing of waterways to Lake Michigan, and Governor Quinn wants billions more for a new airport at Peotone and high-speed rail service to St. Louis.

How does our legislature address these issues? Well, after ex-governor Blagojevich was fired, ethics reforms were proposed, but they have virtually all been rejected by the legislature; Governor Quinn and many legislators spent the last two months campaigning for primary elections; the primary winners will spend the next nine months campaigning for the November elections. Senators Carole Pankau, John Millner, Dan Duffy, Antonio Munoz and others are scrambling for popular votes by "fiddling" with red-light cameras - a nonissue that will bankrupt itself when drivers obey the Rules of the Road. (The Daily Herald should try educating drivers rather than camera-bashing.)

I propose that we limit all elective offices to only one term, so that no time is wasted in office campaigning for consecutive terms. Those who wish to return then have four years to woo the voters between terms.

Marvin A. Schulgen

Lombard