Dawn Abernathy, Republican candidate for the District 59 State House seat, recently responded to updates on the status of term limits via a post on her Facebook page.
“For far too long, the State of Illinois has been run by career politicians and special interests willing to do anything and say anything to hang on to power,” Abernathy said. “We have had decades of mismanagement, corruption and insider favors.”
Candidates statewide have begun to speak out against professional politics in their desire to overcome such legislative hurdles as term limits, as well as re-evaluating the General Assembly’s power to assign legislative district boundaries.
| Contributed photo
“Term limits are a way to start to fix the broken political system,” Abernathy said. “I call on (Abernathy's election opponent) Carol Sente to stand with the governor and be the independent leader in Springfield she claims to be. Sign the pledge to change the culture in Springfield. She should demand a vote in the next session of the Illinois General Assembly to limit the terms of service to no more than 10 years combined Senate and House terms and no more than eight years for the governor. I have already signed the pledge.”
Polling conducted at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale has revealed that approximately 4 out of 5 Illinois residents support term limits, yet for the past 33 years, Chicago Democrat Mike Madigan (D-Dist. 22) has been a state representative, serving as Illinois House speaker for all but two of those years.
Additionally, earlier in 2016, a citizens group attempted to place a redistricting amendment on November’s ballot to remove remapping from politicians’ domains and make the process nonpartisan. Although the group collected nearly twice the required 300,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot, a lawsuit by a Madigan associate prevented voters from being heard on the matter.
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