Well Rich, The Pantagraph Has Improved
ArchPundit
Yes, it’s a mindnumblingly stupid editorial, but you should remember the schlock of yester years like the breathless reporting of Satanic Worship coming to McLean County because a sheep was found bloodied and dead. After reporting that it must be a sacrifice from a Satanic Cult, turns out someones dog got himself a bit of sheep. Oops.
Rich covers the basic problem of the proposal well:
One painful lesson we learned over and over when Rod Blagojevich was around was that the Illinois governor has too much constitutional power. Yet, the Pantagraph would weaken the General Assembly further without touching the governor’s authority.
Are the legislative leaders too powerful? Of course. But they got that power through political muscle, not the Constitution. Because they have so few powers enumerated to them, they’ve had to build their own power base with politics. That’s one reason why they are so reluctant to give up their political powers via campaign finance reform (although they are also undoubtedly loathe to cede their grand fiefdoms to the whims of a bunch of reformers and Republicans). Take away their political leverage and the governor’s constitutional powers will only be enhanced.
The same is essentially true of the Chicago mayor. Legally, the city has a “weak mayor” form of government, so the only way mayors have been able to truly govern effectively is if they had a powerful political organization. Witness Jane Byrne’s flip-flop after she defeated the Machine for a prime example, and Harold Washington’s losses to the Machine until he elected more sympathetic aldermen.
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s a fact.
I still think Rich misses the stupidest part of it:
The biggest argument against term limits is that voters can apply them any time they want by defeating an elected official’s re-election bid.
But that’s only partly true. Voters might be able to toss out statewide officials and lawmakers from their own district, but they have no voice in removing lawmakers in other districts who wield inordinate power, such as the House speaker or Senate president, for example.
So then, people should be able to veto other citizens’ choices. Ah, democracy at work! Voters do have a voice in removing the House Speaker. They can elect people who promise to not vote for Mike Madigan. I don’t think anyone from Bloomington has voted for Mike Madigan as Speaker since the cutback amendment so losing an argument is not the same as not having a say.
This is teabagger argumentation at its best. Losing an election is not like taxation without representation and having a legislative leader who you don’t support does not mean that you should be able to remove another citizens’ choice. Even those idiots who vote for Dan Lipinski. Illinois citizens have routinely elected a majority of Democrats who were always going to vote for Madigan for Speaker. That’s a choice and Republicans have used that as an effective campaign argument against Democrats in some districts and that’s as it should be.
Are there ways to reduce the power of the Lege leaders? Yes, and when the Republicans instituted them the members gave the power right back to Tom Cross. That’s no bad mark on Tom Cross–it’s a bad mark on his colleagues who like it to be easy.
Beyond all this, I’ve seen term limits in action and I see nothing that has improved in Missouri with term limits and a lot of bad decisions and half-ass lawmaking. Does it happen in Illinois too–sure, but experienced legislators are the best defense against determined lobbyists.