Turnaround by limiting terms

How often do we go to the polls and see one person on the ballot? How often do the few challengers have to stand up to a gale of attack ads from the entrenched incumbents? How often do we question the motives or sanity of someone willing to put their family through the meat grinder of Illinois politics?

There’s a fairly simple answer: implement term limits in Illinois. Eight years and out.

A democracy is supposed to be Mr. Smith or Ms. Jones goes to Springfield — and then goes home. They are supposed to have real jobs and talk to the real people they represent. Voters are supposed to have a choice.

Politicians are not supposed to be House Speaker for more than 30 years, wielding all the power and making all the decisions with three other people behind closed doors. They are not supposed to be a political class reliant on money and power from special interests and government employee unions.

Gov. Bruce Rauner is making term limits one of five items over which he’s willing to die on the hill. Why this issue when most of the Turnaround Agenda is about growing jobs and thus tax revenue? Because Illinois got into this situation thanks to decades of career politicians doing business as usual. They have been much more interested in holding their seats than in improving our state.

Even when state lawmakers knew they had to pass a balanced budget, they couldn’t help themselves and turned in a spending plan that they admitted was $4 billion in the red. They knew it would be vetoed, as Rauner has clearly stated for months, and lead to this impasse with state payrolls in limbo.

At some point you realize you can’t change the tiger’s stripes, and the only way to save the villagers is to eliminate the marauder.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Turnaround by limiting terms."