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Term Limit Referendum Gets Another Setback in Illinois

Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner loses another round in his legal fight to get a term limit referendum on the November ballot.

By Rick Pearson

 

Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner lost another round in his bid to get a term limit referendum before voters today when an appellate court upheld a Cook County judge's ruling that kept it off the November ballot.

The appellate decision came a day after Rauner held a Springfield news conference to try to pressure the courts to issue a quick ruling on his effort to ask voters whether to limit state lawmakers to eight years in office.

The 1st District Appellate Court said the proposed constitutional amendment question was invalid based on a previous Illinois Supreme Court decision that found term limits to be a matter of the "eligibility or qualifications of an individual legislator."

As a result, the appeals court said, the proposal did not fall into the narrow window in which proposed petition-driven state constitutional amendments can appear on the fall ballot. The state's highest court previously has ruled that such proposed amendments must affect both the structure and procedure of the General Assembly.

The ruling comes just days before the Illinois State Board of Elections is scheduled to certify the Nov. 4 general election ballot.

In a statement, Rauner said he had directed his legal team to file an immediate appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

"The Illinois Supreme Court should not ignore the people of Illinois," Rauner said, citing the nearly 600,000 petition signatures the proposal received. "We are hopeful that the Illinois Supreme Court will find in favor of the citizens of Illinois."

The state's high court could decide not to consider the case. Even if Rauner ends up losing his court battle, the term limit issue could still pay political dividends for Rauner, an equity investor making his first bid for public office.

A theme of Rauner's campaign has been to rail against political insiders and longtime legislators such as powerful Democrat Michael Madigan, who has served as House speaker for 29 of the past 31 years. The constitutional challenge to Rauner's term-limit proposal was led in court by a longtime Madigan ally, attorney Michael Kasper.

Previously, the state Supreme Court has found the state constitution provides only a narrow window for citizen-led petition-driven initiatives, such as the proposal Rauner attempted through his Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits.

Petition initiatives asking voters to change the state's governing document are limited to affecting both the structure and procedure of the General Assembly, the state's highest court has ruled.

Rauner sought to get around the legal limitation by proposing not only to limit legislators to eight years of service, but also reducing the size of the Illinois Senate, increasing the size of the House, eliminating two-year state Senate terms and requiring a two-thirds -- rather than three-fifths -- vote of lawmakers to override a governor's veto.

But in a 3-0 ruling of the appellate panel, written by Judge Maureen Connors, the court cited a two-decade-old state Supreme Court ruling. Ironically, that case involved a term-limit effort spearheaded by Pat Quinn, the current governor of Illinois that Rauner is trying to unseat.

"The (Supreme) Court characterized term limits as a matter of eligibility or qualifications of an individual legislator, which 'do not involve the structure or the legislature as an institution,'" Connors wrote.

She found that while other provisions contained in the Rauner-backed proposal separately "might well comply" with the structural and procedural requirement, "the proposed amendment is ultimately invalid because of its term limits provision."

Connors, however, wrote that the appeals court did not find that the other elements of the proposal involving the legislature's size and veto requirement were related as required by the state constitution's free and equal elections clause.

"We are not convinced by the (term limit) committee's attempt to unify these various components under the common objective of increasing the responsiveness of the General Assembly and reducing the influence of partisan and special interests," Connors' decision said.

"Moreover, we do not see the proposed amendment's disparate components as compatibly interrelated. The committee has failed to persuasively articulate how increasing the threshold needed to override a governor's veto is at all related to increasing the responsiveness of the General Assembly," she wrote.

Tribune reporter Ray Long contributed from Springfield.

(c)2014 the Chicago Tribune

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