ONLY IN ILLINOIS: TWO WORDS THAT HAVE KEPT LAWMAKER TERM LIMITS IN ILLINOIS OFF LIMITS TO VOTERS

People of Illinois, an appellate court has spoken: Your constitution is stacked against you.

So begins the Chicago Tribune’s Aug. 21 editorial, published only hours after an appellate court said term limits are off-limits for citizen-led constitutional amendment proposals.

It’s an accurate statement in more ways than the Tribune editorial board intended. The Illinois Constitution is designed to protect itself from amendments with grassroots origins. The authors of the 1970 constitution and the voters who ratified it made a clear statement: Constitutional amendments offered to voters should, with one narrow exception, come from elected lawmakers, not ordinary citizens.

Why would they do this? Perhaps to ensure that Illinois does not become like California, where the state constitution allows citizens to pursue any constitutional amendment or statute. Californians frequently pass propositions that keep the state’s appellate courts busy and create headaches for lawmakers.

In poll after poll, we’ve seen that Illinois citizens overwhelmingly favor lowering taxes but oppose cutting spending on education, public safety or human services. Unfortunately, those are about the only places in the state budget where large, discretionary cuts can be made to offset tax cuts. California voters had those same attitudes in the ’70s and ’80s, so they changed their constitution accordingly.

Proposition 13 in 1978 put strict limits on California property taxes and imposed tough standards for tax increases by lawmakers. That led to the state having a lot less money to spend on things like education. A decade later, voters passed Proposition 98, which established minimum funding for education in the state budget. The problem is, you can’t have it both ways.

By contrast, citizens who want to propose a constitutional amendment on their own in Illinois must clear two big hurdles. First they need to collect thousands of signatures from registered voters. The number of signatures must be 8 percent of the vote total from the previous gubernatorial election. Then comes the second hurdle.

Specifically, from Article XIV, Section 3, of the Illinois Constitution:

Amendments shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV.

Article IV defines the Illinois legislature. So if you plan to gather signatures to change the state constitution, you need to make sure your amendment changes only something structural or procedural in Article IV. If it proposes to do something else, like create a progressive income tax or establish a definition of marriage or legalize marijuana, it will not be allowed to appear on a statewide ballot. You’ll need to convince your state senator or representative to spearhead an effort for those things. Lawmakers can propose amendments to anything in the constitution.

Once they convince three-fifths of their colleagues in the House and Senate to approve your proposed amendment, then it can be presented to voters in the next general election.

What we learned this week from the Illinois First District Court of Appeals is that legislative term limits do not qualify as structural or procedural changes to the legislature. That’s been the rule ever since the Illinois Supreme Court 20 years ago threw out a term limits citizen initiative led by then-Illinois Treasurer Pat Quinn. The supreme court said that term limits did not affect the structure or procedure of the legislature, but instead had to do with “eligibility or qualifications of an individual legislator.”

If that sounds counter-intuitive to you, you’re not alone. Length of allowable time in office seems like the most basic component of the legislature’s structure and procedure.

The appeals court rejected the Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits‘ argument that its bill “changes the entire structure of legislative terms” and therefore should be allowed to go before the voters. In fact, the court said that while some parts of the amendment passed the “structural and procedural” test, the term limits portion disqualified the whole thing. (In addition to setting eight-year term limits, the amendment also increased the number of votes necessary to override a governor’s veto from three-fifths to two-thirds, reduced the Illinois Senate to 41 senators and increased the House to 123 members.)

(S)ome components of the Committee’s proposed amendment may very well comply with article XIV, section 3. However, the proposed amendment is ultimately invalid because of its term limits provision

Later in the opinion, however, the court disqualified the amendment because it had too many unrelated components.

Bruce Rauner, the main backer of the term limits amendment, on Thursday called on the Illinois Supreme Court to hear the case. But it’s unlikely that the 2014 court will outright reverse the 1994 court’s decision. High courts generally don’t make wholesale reversals. Nor should it, in this case.

Rauner’s amendment was a kitchen-sink effort that used term limits as a Trojan horse for lots of things that would benefit a Gov. Bruce Rauner. This is especially true of the provision that would have required two-thirds majorities to override gubernatorial vetoes. Currently, both the House and Senate have veto-proof, three-fifths majorities of Democrats. Adoption of this amendment would have made it much harder for the legislature override vetoes.

You have to wonder how many of the 600,000 signers of term limits petitions knew that they were signing for more than just term limits.

Click here to continue reading…

NEXT ARTICLE  Court rejects term limits effort; Rauner asks for Supreme Court ruling 

[RECOMMENDED]

1. Media panel breaks down 2014 Illinois’ governor’s race
2. Cartoon: NewChicago Tribune polls have Mayor Rahm Emanuel flying low for 2015 reelection bid
3. Want to tell your local representatives what you think about the state of the Illinois government? Use our Sound Off tool; it’s easy and efficient
4. Guest: Jim Edgar endorsement could pay off big for Bruce Rauner
5. Infographic: It’s cheaper to own a car in Illinois than most other states, according to a new 2014 survey