Term Limits for Legislative Leaders – Where State Senators Stand
Previously, McHenry County Blog extracted the responses of state representatives to a proposal to impose term limits on leaders.
Locally, Republican Mike Tryon was the only one opposed to imposing term limits on legislative leaders.
That’s the reform I championed when I was running on the Libertarian Party ticket for governor against “unreformer” (as John Kass puts it) Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan.
(Top fund raisers of both of my 2002 opponents are now Federal felons awaiting imprisonment.)
Based on my 43 years of watching Springfield politics, I believe such term limits would do more to make the General Assembly responsive to citizen wishes than anything else.
Here’s where suburban state senators stand on the issue:
- Pam Althoff – Favors
- Michael Bond – Favors
- Dan Cronin – Favors
- Kirk Dillard – Favors
- Dan Duffy – Favors
- Susan Garrett – Favors
- Don Harmon – Refused to answer, saying he was part of the negotiating process
- Linda Holmes – Favors
- Randy Hultgren – Favors
- Dan Kotowski – Opposes
- Chris Lauzen – Favors
- Terry Link – Opposes
- John Millner – Favors
- Matt Murphy – Favors
- Michael Nolan – Favors
- Carol Pankau – Favors
- Arthur AJ Wilhelmi – Opposes
So, all Republicans in favor; three Democrats openly opposed.
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The signs are the ones I took to every appearance in my 2002 gubernatorial campaign. The phone number on the bottom was switched because I thought an 8-year term limit for legislative leaders was more appropriate than one of 6 years.
