Term limits address the special ills of Illinois

As reported earlier, a campaign has been launched to put 8-year legislative term limits and other reforms on the Illinois ballot for November 2014. While every state legislature should have them, there are characteristics of the Illinois legislature that make limits essential.

While many states have part-time legislators who are paid nominal amounts for their service, a seat in the Illinois legislature is a full-time, year-round job paying a professional salary of $67,836 a year plus expenses. Legislators can retire earlier than other state workers and get a better pension too. The job attracts professional politicians like moths to a flame. Indeed the two best represented occupations in the legislature are lawyers and, you guessed it, professional legislators. Illinois suffers greatly from this narrow range of experience.

Illinois is among the nation's most corrupt states. Corruption is highly correlated to tenure because secure tenure breeds the hubris and opportunity necessary for corruption to blossom. Not only that, but the closed, tight circle of a government without regular rotation is far less transparent – and hence less accountable – than a more open, term-limited one.

Illinois state elections are simply not competitive. Since 2001, 97 percent of incumbents won reelection. Term limits mandate open seat elections at least every eight years in every seat. With term limits, the era of automatic incumbency will end, quick.

At election time, it is normal for half of the legislative seats to be uncontested, which means no elections are held and voters have no say in who represents them. This may continue to be true in non-term limit years, but in every seat a potentially competitive open seat election will be right around the corner under 8-year term limits.

 

Supporter in Cary, Ill.

The political culture in Illinois is characterized by political scientists as "individualistic," where the business of politics is chiefly concerned with about who is getting what. Who wins elections determines whose supporters get rewarded. (This is often contrasted with more "moralistic" or ideological political cultures such as in, say, Wisconsin.) The result is that a symbiotic relationship emerges between the legislator and the special interests that serves both their interests, permanently. Term limits tear up these cozy relationships and greatly reduce the influence of lobbies, whose resources are stretched thin between competitive races and who are constantly having to create new relationships.

One of the most marked peculiarities about the Illinois legislature is the centralization of power in the hands of party caucus leaders. Unlike other states and the U.S. Congress where committee chairman wield great power, in Illinois committees are more like rubber stamps for what the leadership wants. The leadership even chooses staffs for legislators and doles out campaign money for targeted races around the state. Term limits will change that.

Chris Mooney, a professor of political studies with the Institute of Government Affairs at the University of Illinois, believes it is for this reason more than any other that the effect of term limits will be a profound one in Illinois.

"The most prominent characteristic of recent General Assemblies is the centralization of power in the hands of long-serving party caucus leaders; by ousting these and other senior legislators, term limits will almost certainly effect a complete reconfiguration of the state's political power structure."

That is what Illinois needs and what voters want.

It's about time: Term limits coming to Illinois!

By nearly any metric, Illinois is a basket case. In terms of growth of gross domestic output and growth of employment the state has long trailed the nation. Taxpayers have been migrating out of the state. The treasury is empty and taxes are rising in a self-destructive attempt to keep the state government afloat. One state scorecard ranked Illinois 47th among the 50 states in economic performance in 2012 and 48th for economic outlook.

How can this be?  Illinois has a full-time, professional legislature which is made up of predominately lawyers and experienced professional legislators. There is little turnover, with one study showing that overall turnover of the Illinois legislature to be the seventh lowest in the nation.  Certainly such a stable and experienced full-time team of lawmakers should make Illinois among the best-managed states.

Or, maybe this is precisely the problem. Maybe legislatures operate better with regular turnover, meaningful voter input via competitive elections, better incentives and a wider range of experience.

Bruce Rauner

Recent polling shows voters think so. A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute Poll published in November 2012 suggests some 78 percent of Illinois registered voters believe term limits are what is needed to shake up Springfield.

And it looks like they are going to get their way. A campaign has sprung up, led by venture capitalist and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, which aims to put a reform package on the ballot for 2014 with 8-year term limits as its centerpiece. The committee is currently raising money and making plans to collect the 300,000 signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot. You can help the Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits at their website here.

Before the first signature is collected you can already hear the politicians and special interests dusting off their favorite defense: "We aleady have term limits, they are called elections."

The problem with that little flower of homespun wholesomeness is that it isn't true. Over half of all legislative seats in last year's Illinois general election went unopposed. There were no elections held at all!  Even where elections were held for contested seats nearly all were nominal, lopsided affairs. A study of the legislature from 1992-2003 showed that the average vote margin in nominally contested races was never less than 25 percent.

Nothing has changed since then. Competitive elections are virtually unknown in the state of Illinois.

Consider this: Since 2001, incumbents seeking re-election have won more than 97 percent of the time.

Term limits will return turnover to the Illinois legislature, give voters greater voice, change the leadership of the body and toss out the professional legislators. It's time, let's get it done.

Illinois' Quinn a mighty reformer

Most likely Gov. Rod Blagojevich will be impeached or will voluntarily resign over his attempted sale of Sen. Barack Obama's now-empty Senate seat, but either way Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn is likely to be the next governor of Illinois.

Who is Pat Quinn?

Lt. Gov. Quinn has held the #2 spot in Illinois for the last six years and is, oddly, an opponent of the governor and corrupt machine politics generally. This is possible because, in Illinois, the candidates for the governor and lieutenant governor positions run on the same ticket in the general election as a team, but they are chosen separately in the primaries.

Although of the same party, Quinn -- a genuine populist reformer -- cuts a strikingly different political profile than the corrupt careerist Blagojevich.

In the 1970s Quinn, then a tax attorney, led an effort to give the state's voters the citizen initiative. In 1994, he led an effort to limit the terms of legislators to eight years in office, his "Eight is Enough" initiative. He collected the necessary signatures, but the Illinois Supreme Court wouldn't let it appear on the ballot.

Undaunted, Quinn launched a 2008 effort to give Illinois voters the right of recall. Perhaps learning from his term limits experience, he called for a vote on a state constitutional convention to take up this issue. A Cook County Circuit Judge tossed this latest reform measure off the ballot.

"In a state that has more than its share of crooks and people who go along to get along, Pat Quinn stands out as someone who takes on the powers-that-be," Howie Rich, chairman of U.S. Term Limits, told the Wall Street Journal.

The 1967 Bob Dylan song The Mighty Quinn tells the nursery rhyme-like story of the arrival in town of the Eskimo Quinn, who brings great and positive change. Since the lieutenant governor has arrived on the political scene he has surely made an honest effort to do that. Surely the Illinois power brokers are uncomfortable with his likely and imminent promotion. What will he try next?

"You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn," sang Dylan. Let's hope he's right.

Illinois rep calls for gubernatorial term limits

Illinois State Rep. Mike Boland gets it.

In November, Rep. Boland (D-Moline) announced his plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to limit the term of the Illinois governor to two 4-year terms and establish a recall process. Illinois would be the 38th state with gubernatorial term limits.

“Incumbent governors have many political advantages, from patronage to big money,” Boland said in a press release. “If we open up the gubernatorial position at least once every decade, we will generate competition and empower voters.”

Rep. Boland toured the state in November to announce and pitch his proposal, which he says would address Illinois' culture of political corruption. He expects public support and official resistance.

"This is going to be resisted by political establishments," he said. "People in power like things the way they are and that way hasn't been working for the tax payers."

This would be a big break for term limits in a state without a term limits tradition at the state or local level. Nine of the largest 10 cities in America have term limits, with Chicago being the exception.

Illinois 'legislative reform' package is more than just term limits

The Illinois 8-year term limits initiative intended for the November 2014 ballot is a package of reforms, yet all the attention will be paid to its centerpiece. Indeed, it is the 8-year term limits that will offer the most profound changes to the way Springfield works -- or doesn't work.

But what of the other elements? Are they legit? Is there a surprise inside? Color me cynical, but there are politicians in the room!

Reviewing the amendment here, it is clear there are no hidden trap doors or bended mirrors. Each element complements the term limits plank in an attempt to make the Illinois legislature more simple, flexible and representative. And, like the term limits, most of the ideas have been tested in other states.

THREE HOUSE SEATS PER SENATE DISTRICT -- This amendment would divide the Senate districts into three House seats instead of the current two so that an incumbent house member would be limited to one third instead of one half of the Senate District in terms of name recognition. This is another shift in power from incumbents to outsiders. That is, to citizens.

CHANGES IN CHAMBER MEMBERSHIP -- To accommodate the plank above, this amendment changes the number of members in each chamber. The House will expand from 118 to 123 members and the Senate will shrink from 59 to 41. A secondary benefit of this is that the House is the more representative of the two chambers, or at least it will be once the term limits kick in. It has shorter terms, more elections and smaller districts where one citizen can have more influence. On a net basis, the membership changes reduce the overall number of members and saves some money.

VETO POWER -- In Illinois it is unusually easy for the legislature to overturn a veto by the governor, requiring only a 3/5 vote. Under this amendment, the requirement would be 2/3 as it is in 36 other states.

NO MORE 2-YEAR SENATE TERMS -- This one is a simple housekeeping item. It abolishes the odd two-years term in the Senate that somewhat complicates the election process, encourages political gaming and confuses voters. In the future, all Senate terms will be four years as in most other states.

TERM LIMITS -- The crown of the amendment is, of course, the eight-year term limits. Eight years is the most common and time-tested term limit in America from the U.S. President and numerous state governors to nearly a dozen state legislatures and an uncountable number of county commissions, mayors and city councils.

This is a well-constructed package that makes both large and small tweaks to the structure and process of the legislature to push it in a more representative direction.

We need 300,000 signatures to put the question in the voters' hands. Let's get to work.

Does your Congressional candidate support the term limits bill? ASK!

With Congressional approval ratings at historic lows, support for term limits at all-time highs and tea partiers in the streets holding term limits signs, it seems like there is no better time to press for Congressional term limits.

What is missing so far is political leadership. But that might be changing.

For the first time since the Contract with America era we have a popular U.S. Senator, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, sponsoring a term limit amendment. He’s attracted only three senate cosponsors so far and two of those are leaving the Senate, but several potential new ones are currently campaigning for a Senate seat using term limits as a leading campaign theme.

Start with Kentucky. There, Senate candidate Rand Paul – leading in the polls both against his Republican primary opponent and likely Democratic challengers – has pledged to make term limits his number one issue if elected.

"Term limits is the preeminent issue of our campaign," he said. "I will travel to Frankfort and other legislatures to try to get them to act on this issue so we have both Congress and the state legislatures working on it."

But he won’t stop there.

"I will do my best to convince our presidential candidate on the GOP side to adopt the issue as well," Paul said. "I think this is vital in pushing this issue forward."

Another Senate hopeful – also leading in a Republican primary – is Florida’s Marco Rubio. Rubio says he’s seen term limits work when he was Speaker of the House in Florida’s legislature. In fact, he was term-limited out of office. His first-hand experience has led him to believe the U.S. Congress should be term limited too.

"We should be the party of term limits," Rubio told National Review. "We should be the party that says it’s not natural for any human being to serve more than half his adult life in the U.S. Congress."

Rubio, however, is so far ducking the question of whether he will actually cosponsor the DeMint bill, or just likes talking about it.

In Illinois, state senator and former Illinois GOP Chair Gilbert Baker is in a tough primary fight. He’s hoping term limits put him over the top.

"We have got to return to the spirit of a citizen legislature," Baker said. "One way to get back to that, I am going to push for a two term limit in the United States Senate." To emphasize the point, Baker promised that whether he is successful or not, he personally would leave after his two terms. "Twelve years is long enough."

Other term-limits advocates include Republican Stephen Fincher, a leading candidate to succeed retiring Rep. John Tanner (D-TN) and Democrat Iraq War veteran Tommy Sowers, a long-shot candidate against Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO).

U.S. Term Limits urges all voters to ask their Congressional candidates where they stand on Sen. Jim DeMint’s amendment to limit senators to two terms and representatives to three terms in office. We have to nail them down on this before the election.

Ask them and let us know. We’ll make sure term limits supporters in their states know their answer.

IT'S HAPPENING! Term limits amendment filed in the U.S. House

On Thursday, Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois (pictured), Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina introduced a term limits amendment bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, a companion to Sen. DeMint's term limits bill in the Senate.

This means that for the first time since the early 1990s, there is a serious term limits bill introduced in both houses with cosponsorship. With polling for term limits at its highest level ever, the time is right.

Like the DeMint bill, the amendment would limit the terms of house members to six years and senators to 12.

"If we have any hope of ending business as usual in D.C., we must first change the process," Walsh said in his announcement. "Term limits encourage competitive elections and a consistent influx of new leaders bringing a range of different experiences and new ideas to Congress. Keeping the same Members in Congress year after year will yield the same results – runaway spending and a sky-high debt that has led the United States to the verge of insolvency. It’s time to put an end to this. It’s time to bring in new Members with fresh ideas, ready and eager to serve. It’s time to pass a term limit Amendment."

To pass, the bill must be approved two-thirds of the Congress. This is no easy task. Please help!

+ Please sign our online petition in favor of Congressional term limits and pass a link on to your friends, family and associates.

+ Ask your representative in Congress -- and his or her opponents -- to sign the U.S. Term Limits pledge to support the amendment. Traditionally, candidates speak fondly of term limits until they get elected. The pledge locks in their support once they are the incumbents!

+ Make a contribution to U.S. Term Limits. Founded in 1991, we are the oldest and largest national term limits organization with the experience and resources to get the job done.

After passing Congress, the bill has to pass three-fourths of the states, but this is a much lower hurdle. The problem is getting the Congress to limit itself. That will require igniting the passion of the 78 percent of Americans that tell pollsters they support Congressional term limits.

This new bill is the starting gun in the most important political battle of a generation. Let's take it all the way to the finish line.

USTL opens new digs in South Florida

With term limits polling at historic highs and Congress at historic lows, U.S. Term Limits is ramping up operations in preparation for the coming national battle over Congressional term limits.

The single issue advocacy organization, long headquartered in Fairfax, VA, has opened a new branch office in Palm Beach with a new full-time activist focused on lighting term limits fires across the country. Nick Tomboulides, formerly part of the Ford Motor Company social media team, started on Oct. 8. Tomboulides was a successful college activist at the University of Connecticut and an alumnus of the Washington DC-based Leadership Institute's acclaimed training program.

The reason for the Florida location is for Tomboulides to work more closely with USTL President Philip Blumel and USTL Treasurer Rick Shepherd who live in the Palm Beach area.  The office is located at 2875 South Ocean Boulevard #200 in Palm Beach, just north of Lake Worth Beach.

But Tomboulides' focus will be national. 

The time is right. Today there are genuine term limits bills introduced -- with cosponsors! -- in both Houses of Congress and last year the state of Florida voted to officially ask its Congressional delegation to support a Congressional term limits amendment. Dozens of sitting Congress members have signed the USTL pledge in which they committed to cosponsor and vote for such an amendment and USTL plans on expanding the successful pledge program for the 2014 and 2016 elections cycles. The clamor from the people for Congressional term limits is growing louder and the USTL board believes that the time has come to renew the emphasis on Congressional limits.

At the same time there is action in the states, with the petition drive to term limit the Illinois legislature and the deceptive attack on voter-approved term limits in Arkansas. There are many local campaigns springing up as well.

For U.S. Term Limits to sustain its reputation as the nation's oldest, largest and most successful term limits advocacy organization, it must seize the day. And it is.

Please help take advantage of the historic opportunity we have right now by making a contribution to U.S. Term Limits.

Florida officially calls for term limits on U.S. Congress!

The Florida legislature today officially called on the U.S. Congress to pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment limiting Congressional terms in office.

The resolution, passed by acclamation in both houses of the Florida legislature, will be sent to the president of the United States, Speaker of the U.S. House, president of the U.S. Senate and each member of the Florida Congressional delegation.

Florida is the first state to take this step, but it will not be the last. With term limits polling at all-time highs and the Congress at record lows, pressure is building around the nation for Congress to take action.

Sen. Jim DeMint and Rep. David Schweikert have introduced a constitutional amendment (SJR 11 and HJR 71, respectively) limiting congressional terms in the Senate and House. While the Florida action does not specifically mention any specific legislative proposal, they are the first state to go on record in the past decade supporting a congressional term limitation constitutional amendment. Voters overwhelmingly supported Florida’s state constitutional limits on state legislators in 1992 with 77 percent support. Polling from Quinnipiac University in 2009 suggests 82 percent of Floridians continue to support term limits on public officials.

Nationally, the support for term limits remains strong with 78 percent of Americans supporting congressional term limits according to a September 2010 poll conducted for FoxNews by Public Opinion Dynamics. Support is strong across partisan lines with 84 percent of Republicans favoring the idea while 74 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Independents also support limiting congressional terms.

Passage of the term limits constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate and ratification by three-quarters (38) of the states in order to become part of the Constitution. The states are the easy part. The trick is getting through the U.S. Congress and this official call from a important state like Florida is a big help.

The Florida resolution was introduced by State Rep. Matt Caldwell (HM83) in the Florida House and Sen. Joe Negron (SM672) in the Senate.

"The evidence is in. Term limits work,” said Rep. Matt Caldwell of Lehigh Acres. "New York, Illinois and Florida have all been faced with tough decisions on how to balance their state budgets over the last few years. Only one of these states has term limits and only one of these states has cut their budgets to match their revenues and refused to raise taxes."

"Congress is on a collision course with federal bankruptcy and our last, best hope is to bring serious and permanent change to Washington, D.C.," he said.

Does youthful energy drive better outcomes?

 

Term limits supporters cite the importance of youthful enthusiasm, broader outside experience and new ideas that come into office with freshman legislators. Opponents often counter that the loss of specialized experience as veteran legislators leave is too high a price to pay.

 

It is interesting that such debates also swirl even among professions where term limits would not be appropriate. Take education, for instance.

It sounds plausible that losing a swath of longtime veteran teachers would hurt educational results as younger, less experienced teachers take the helm. But a new study suggests this is not the case.

 

Cornell's Maria Fitzpatrick and Michael Lovenheim published a new study that looks at the results of Illinois schools that offered early retirement incentives in the 1990s. As the number of veterans decreased, the study found that "the program did not reduce test scores; likely it increased them, with positive effects most pronounced in lower [in terms of socioeconomic status] schools."

 

Among other explanations, the blog Freakonomics suggested one reason for this result that mirrors what we see in legislatures: "Teachers that are near retirement may put forth less effort than younger teachers or may be less trained in modern, pedagogical practices."

 

That is, energy and ideas matter. Who knew?

 

(Thanks for reason.com for the heads up on this study.)

 

 

 

The emerging 16-year term limit scam

Since the first state term limits were approved by voters in 1990, professional and wannabe professional politicians have tried to overturn them. This opposition has come in progressively devious waves.

The first and most successful counterattacks were legal and several referenda were shot down in courts or in a few cases by legislative action. Examples include Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts,Wyoming and Illinois. The biggest legal victory of the anti-term limits forces was the U.S. Supreme Court's split (5-4) U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton decision in 1995 which nullified the Congressional term limits laws passed by 21 states.

But the remaining 15 state term limits laws are now cast in stone having passed their legal tests. In these states, politicians have to ask voters -- not courts or legislatures -- to abolish or weaken the popular limits at the ballot box. This has proved much more difficult than finding friendly judges.

The first reactionary response was for simple abolition of the limits. As the limits starting taking effect, there was a wave of legislation launched in the term limits states to repeal them. This went nowhere, as voters learned to love term limits more over time, not less.

Next there was a wave of tricky referenda by politicians who "support" term limits but would like to see them "improved" by making them weaker, usually 12 years. Typically, these were written in a way to suggest that the referenda were establishing limits, as if for the first time, to trick a margin of voters into believing the referenda were pro-term limits! This too went nowhere, but it required mobilization by term limits activists to make sure the voters weren't being fooled. Examples include Arkansas, Montana, Maine and California.

This year, politicians in Arkansas, Missouri and Montana are launching the most deceitful strategy yet to free themselves from voter-approved term limits.

Professional politics is an industry. Like other industries, the participants -- parties, politicians, special interests -- compete, often fiercely. But as members of the same industry, they also have common incentives and interests. In the oil industry, for example, the companies compete in the marketplace, surely, but they still have common interests which unite them. Hence they have industry organizations with lobbyists to press their common demands and interests.

Politicians are no different. They compete at the ballot box. But when the dust settles, they talk, they share ideas, they plot, they scheme, they connive... You know.

Hence a new wave of anti-term limits bills are appearing in several states simultaneously with the most outrageous strategy yet. In states with 8-year term limits, politicians are suggesting that 8 years in each house is really a 16-year limit. So, it would be just a small tweak make the 16-year limit official, with the small alteration that politicians could 'spend' their 16 years in either house.

Of course, what this really means is a comfy 16-year stint in one house, as all politicians know the great majority of  reps cannot successfully make the jump to the other. Getting re-elected to one's own seat, on the other hand, is nearly automatic.

This is a scam. A version of it made it to the ballot in Arkansas and passed at least one house in Missouri and Montana last year. In Arkansas, they added additional cover, as they hid this teeny-weeny tweak inside an ethics bill of mild, pleasant-sounding restrictions on lobbyist gifts and contributions. Don't be surprised to see copycats pick up the 'ethics bill' gimmick as well.

So 2014 is the year of the 16-year term limits scam.

Nationwide, polls show the voters' support for term limits has not dimmed over time. The politicians can only succeed though obfuscation and deceit. That places a new burden on us as citizens to get the word out, but we have one big advantage: the simple power of the truth.