26 Comments - A.B. - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 11:54 am: A and B, the answer is NO. Our elected officials serve at the will of the voting population. It is the responsibility of the populace to regulate their elected officials. C Is more of a gray area as the people do not directly make this decision. It might be in the best interests of the parties to institute term limits for these roles. - Ghost - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 11:57 am: no to all. I want the option to elect experienced people who know what they are doing, including letting my elected person vote forhe most experienced person for leader of the house or senate. If term limits are a good idea lets put them on all professions: your docor, plumber, engineer, lawyer, electrician, carpenter, footall coach etc have to start with no experience, and then after working say 6-8 years in their field they are barred from doing that work anymore. That way we can assure that those doing the work are always the most inexperienced we can find. After all, its not like we have some system of voting for canidates that allows the voter to decide who they want in office. I think voters are not smart enough to handle complex decisions like electing people, so they need to be told who they can vote for and when. In fact maybe we just end voting, since we cant trust the voters to select the right unqualified canidates every year, pull the voter out of the loop all together. maybe age limits as well, no person over the age of 24 can be elcted to office; and some financial limits, no prson who owns or works or a business can run….. - Linus - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 11:58 am: I’d go with C - the only choices listed here that aren’t directly chosen by voters. Voters do have the opportunity to limit the terms of lawmakers and statewides, every two to four years. While I’d certainly like to see some legislators and statewides leave the capitol about as quickly as they arrived, there are others who are strong, long-term assets to the leadership of Illinois - folks from both sides of the aisle, whose institutional memory, experience and guidance I’d hate to lose. - Nuance - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 11:58 am: A and B the answer is YES. Then C is YES by default. I know there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages either way but one of the supposed effects of term limits would be to weaken the strength of the political parties. Right now, I am for anything that weakens the parties. - wordslinger - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:02 pm: No, I’m against term limits. We’ve seen in this election cycle that powerful incumbents can be turned out if people engage. Term limits are another sedative to allow the public to go back to sleep. - corvax - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:02 pm: i’m generally against things like mandated term limits that limit voters’ choices. however, it seems they may have some value in executive positions such as president or governor so as to avoid concentrations of power. on the legislative side, i think you lose too much institutional memory with term limits. that isn’t as much of a risk on the excutive side where, presumably and ideally, enough positions in the bureaucracy aren’t susceptible to political change with each election of a new executive. so i guess i’m ok with term limts on statewide offices but not legislative seats. it’s a toss-up on legislative leaders; i’m not as concerned with circumscribing the choices of elected officials and periodic forced change may be ok. - DuPage Dave - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:06 pm: A thousand times “no” on all three. The concept of term limits is a public relations gimmick thought up by Republicans when they were on the outs in Congress. Those elected under term limits pledges of course ignored them when their time was up. We need experienced representatives in the Legislature, as well as newer faces. The problem with the Speaker (or Senate President) is twofold: the ability to bottle up legislation that deserves a vote of the people’s representatives; and the capacity to funnel donations to members in exchange for their votes. The first is anti-democratic and the second is essentially corrupt (vote buying). End those practices and it won’t matter quite so much who the Speaker may be. - 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:06 pm: No to all. We all know the arguments for against term limits so I won’t rehash why I think they are a bad idea. I will point out that self-imposed term limits are a wonderful idea. Former Congressman Shimkus honored his pledge to step down after 5 terms in Congress, and he’s a role model for keeping one’s word. A rare commodity in politics. Wait, he’s still there? I guess he proves my point about term limits. And keeping one’s word. - lake county democrat - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:07 pm: A/B No - term limits empower the out-of-sight/fungible staffs and their lobbyist puppeteers. C - yes. - VanillaMan - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:08 pm: Yes Yes Yes We will not see motivated office holders that understand that a public office is a public trust owned by the public until we do this. There are no over riding benefits in having professional politicians entrenched in personal fiefdoms as they currently are. My political science professors disagree, but what do these tenured lecturers know about real life? Whatever supposed benefits are accrued through life long politicians is offset by the closed door they bar. An engaged citizenry is best. Parties that move citizens through public offices are healthier. Politicians that know they have a time limit are better motivate.Poliicians that know the public offices they occupy are not theirs are better grounded. Democracy is not harmed by term limits because term limits prevent entrenched royalties which harm democracies. There has been no self cleaning in our current corrupt ridden governments. Had enough? I have. Citizens are cynical for valid reasons not because of any ideological pack mentality afflicting it. Lack of trust in government is a major road block right now. Actions must be taken. Term limits have been around long enough to see that any unintended circumstances from them are minimal. - Plutocrat03 - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:10 pm: I like the 20 questions. As far as the above question I would like to answer no to all sections. What gives me pause is that that empowers the party hierarchy to make their selections outside the public’s view. - Vav - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:22 pm: Yes - A and B. Then by default C. I used to agree with AB, Ghost and Linus that we have term limits at the ballot box. Unfortunately we often vote for the experienced because they are known and experienced. As a state employee who voted for Blago told me. “Better to dance with the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. With term limits we would return to citizen legislators, which would change the culture of these positions. I like citizen legislators. My only concern is that lobbyists become the “experienced” people that the newly elected rely on for direction. - Sporty41 - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:23 pm: In Illinois and in the United States, the primary thrust of every “politician” is to get re-elected; not to do the right and, as is often the case, the difficult thing. Term limits take this out of play. Other reforms are obviously necessary but this is a good start. - D.P. Gumby - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:27 pm: no, no, no What there needs to be is full disclosure of all campaign contributions and, if they are from a source that aggregated them, then from the aggregated source. The source of money tells all. - steve schnorf - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:43 pm: I generally oppose term limits conceptually, but I really don’t like the idea of people seizing office and holding it for life, unaccountable to the public for their performance. If we had elections regularly, that might be different but…. - He Makes Ryan Look Like a Saint - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 12:52 pm: Yes Yes Yes - Thoughts... - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 1:03 pm: No to all. I agree with almost all arguments against term limits and I’ll add one more at the legislative level. If we were truly to have “citizen legislators” then that person would need to have the ability to be in Springfield 40-80 days per year for session. I, personally, wouldn’t be able to take the time away from my employment to do that and still keep my job. I don’t know many who would, and we would thus be overrepresented by a bunch of rich folks who have time and money to spare - not exactly representative, if you ask me. - CircularFiringSquad - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 1:12 pm: If you are a lobbyist or power mad staffer then term limits are your cup of tea. If you are someone who wants someone to stand up to the special interests take your term limits to the “reformers” and impose the limits there. - Secret Square - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 1:12 pm: Statewide office: Yes. 2 terms for Governor (just like for POTUS), maybe 3 for all other constitutionals. General Assembly: A qualified yes. If there are to be term limits here they should be significantly longer than for the executive branch officals — at least 16-20 years. Long enough to prevent wholesale turnover of large groups of legislators at one time, while preventing members from making a lifetime career of it. House Speaker/Senate President: Definitely yes, no more than 8 years in either post. The more power is concentrated in one office, the shorter the term limit for that office should be. - Squideshi - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 1:39 pm: Yes to all except questions 12, 15, and 17. Questions 12 and 15 are garbage because they both ask about bipartisan commissions. The commissions shouldn’t be bipartisan, which is a type of partisanship, they should be NONPARTISAN. I answer no to question 17 for largely the same reasons Rich Whitney wrote in his explanation at the bottom. While I support a change in the state’s primary system, I absolutely do not believe that voters should be permitted to select the ballot of any political party they want. Political parties are private, voluntary, membership associations who enjoy a constitutional right to freedom of association, which implies the right not to associate (That’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion.) Non-members and non-invited voters should not be permitted to interfere in a party’s candidate selection process by party raiding. Parties have a right to choose their own membership requirements and their own standard bearers. In addition, voters should be able to participate in the primary election of as many political parties as will have them. Further, the state shouldn’t really be running and paying for primary elections anyway. Let the parties bear their own expense for managing their candidate selection process. Whomever they choose will be presented to the public at the regular election; and if the people don’t like the candidates presented by the parties, then they can always start new parties or run independent candidates. Also, a political party shouldn’t be forced to use a primary election for candidate selection. If they ran their own process, they could choose between convention, caucus, or any other method that they might prefer. - Ken in Aurora - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 2:27 pm: Yes in all cases - shorter terms for statewide offices, longer for the GA. - LouisXIV - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 2:40 pm: I’ve always thought the idea of imposing a limit on the terms someone can run for is laughable. We already have the best form of term limits - elections. - MikeMacD - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 3:40 pm: No to all three. Regarding the state wide offices, I looked at a list of the past Illinois Governors and with the exception of James Thompson no one has held the office for more than 8 years. This appears to me to be a solution in need of a problem since the other state wide offices are more of a functional nature rather than political (A.G. being slightly arguable). - So IL Student - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 3:51 pm: No to all…. In an act of shameless self promotion. Here is a paper published by the Paul Simon Public Policy institue I wrote with my professor. http://paulsimoninstitute.org/images/PDF/papers/illinoisreform-final.pdf - Pelon - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 4:16 pm: Yes on A and B. No on C, but that doesn’t matter much if everyone is limited. I also used to believe that voters could impose their own term limits at the ballot box, but I’ve changed in the last few years as I’ve seen the quality of politicians on both sides continue to worsen. Another solution is to eliminate pensions and post-term benefits for all elected individuals. That would greatly reduce the number of career politicians. - dupage dan - Friday, Sep 24, 10 @ 4:37 pm: Yes on all 3. Reasonable limits would be something on the order of a decade for all cases. Long enough to establish a power base and get some things done but not so long that we have to suffer especially at the hands of a speaker who has amassed such power. To bad out illustrious PQ was instrumental in making that possible. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.