Illinois Deserves Better: The Ironclad Case for an Ilinois Constitutional Convention (Paperback)

I’ve ordered it, and can’t wait to read it. The authors are John Bambenek and Bruno Behrend.

John has written about the Constitutional Convention on his blog before.

There are a lot of things for Illinois voters to consider regarding this; one of them is Governor Blagovich’s poor record.

Others are gerrymandering and term limits.

The practice of gerrymandering needs to be eliminated. There are disturbingly few uncompetitive races throughout the state. Democrats have their seats, Republicans have theirs and often they do not even try to compete for the other party’s turf. Politicians should not be able to choose their voters; it should be the other way around. Take a look at the map of Illinois Congressional District 4 to see how ridiculous gerrymandered maps can be.

Along with gerrymandering, it is time to consider term limits for every elected and appointed office in the state. Far too many politicians rule “for life” without any real means for the voters to make them responsive to their needs. Every elected office on all levels should be limited to a maximum of 2 terms or 8 years. Likewise, appointed officials who hold a great amount of power who are not directly accountable to the people need to have their terms of office limited as well.

Dick Durbin, for example, has completely lost sight of his constituents, having been in office for an astonishing 37 years, and never holding a private sector job.

Illinois is now facing a debt increase of a staggering $27 billion since Governor Blagojevich took office.

If this is a hint of what’s in the book, I’ll be glad to have it in a concise 68-page booklet that I can carry around with me.

Here is another post at John’s, he talks about the book, and having written a draft constitution to empower voters, which is one of the biggest complaints we have about Illinois government and politicians; they have left their constituents in the dust in favor of special interest groups and their own personal gain.