A new twist on term limits

Returning a person to the same job term after term in the legislature is how Madigan and Cullerton were able to get control and misuse it by presiding over what is a corrupt state government that is responsible for businesses leaving the state and fewer entrepreneurial operators electing to set up a business in Illinois.

People shouldn't run for office with the idea of making a career out of it. It may be setting the bar too high to put oneself in the position of having to go into some private enterprise after serving the term limit in the legislature. There can be a temptation to run things to your benefit first rather than the people's first. This has rather clearly happened in the Illinois legislature.

It certainly is not the case that everyone in state office is dishonest, but we need to have a means of ridding ourselves of people that are operating on their own behalf rather than that of the state. Yet, when the incumbent has only to operate to the satisfaction of the voters in his own district, he is not controlled by the voters of any other district and the state can't touch him.

This is why the voters in the whole state need to have the leverage to get rid of a House Majority Leader who can run things by allowing only bills that he deems useful to himself or that he can horse trade for favors with other legislators. The House Majority Leader in our legislature has this authority.

Illinois has only two means of protecting itself against corrupt management: 1. Voting a legislative officer out each November if the voters recognize what he is doing. Only the voters in his district can do this, although his behavior affects the whole state. This is the situation in Illinois. 2. Impose reasonable term limits on all legislative officers. Inability to rid ourselves of bad legislative management is clearly why the state is in such terrible fiscal condition as it is.

Chuck Barr

St. Charles