Daily Herald opinion: Challenge to ordinance update at Des Plaines council follows a disturbing trend

This editorial is a consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board.

Considering how often elected officials praise a government based on the will of the people expressed at the ballot box, it can be distressing to see how willing some are to defy it to make personal political points.

The most famous recent national example of this trend came from 147 Republican congressmen who refused on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. But in Des Plaines this week, a rare challenge of a routine procedure demonstrated that the behavior is not restricted either to party or national affairs.

On Monday, three Des Plaines aldermen - Carla Brookman, Mark Lysakowski and Patsy Smith - balked at supporting a measure to amend the city's term limits ordinance to reflect the results of a binding April 4 citywide referendum that tightened the rules of the city's term limits policy. The new rules limit the mayor, aldermen and city clerk to two four-year terms, period, in their position. Previous policy, set by voters in 1998, permitted individuals who served two consecutive terms to return for election after a break in service.

Fortunately, the other five members of the City Council voted to pass the resolution. Had the measure failed, the practical consequence, as Mayor Andrew Goczkowski told our Russell Lissau, would be a costly future lawsuit if an alderman who left office after back-to-back terms returned later to try to get back on the council. But an even more disturbing repercussion would be the statement such an action would make about political leaders' acceptance of the stated will of voters.

Brookman, Lysakowski and Smith offered various reasons for their opposition. These included concerns about the wording of the ballot question, the timing of the referendum and the resultant low voter turnout (less than 12%) and the mixed signals implied by voters re-electing three aldermen who, as it happens, wouldn't be eligible to run under the restrictions they approved.

To be sure, there were head-scratching implications in the referendum outcome. But none of the concerns raised are relevant to the issue that faced the council. That resolution simply described the ballot question and the voting results - 64% in favor, 36% opposed - and provided the city attorney's explanation of how the new restrictions would apply in the future.

The voters had spoken. Nearly two-thirds of the 12% who considered local elections important enough to participate in wanted the tougher term limits. The 88% who didn't exercise their right to vote demonstrated the usual willingness of the non-voter to abide by whatever decision the rest of the electorate supports.

That's democracy. Not always pretty. Sometimes confusing. Often downright frustrating. All that notwithstanding, the purpose of resolutions like this one in Des Plaines is not to provide an outlet for anyone's personal perspective but to act as required to adapt local laws to the binding demands of voters.

If we are to adhere to our system of government's fundamental tenets, our most solemn responsibility - and especially that of the officials who have been put in place by the system - is to accept the results of the ballot box.

That responsibility has been too much ignored or brushed aside of late by partisans across the country who don't like what the voters have told them. It is disappointing - and not a little unsettling - to see it become manifest in a routine, supposedly nonpartisan city council debate.