Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner is revealing more about his effort to impose term limits in Illinois government.
The millionaire venture capitalist formed a political action committee on the issue last month. The ballot initiative PAC has $205,000 in its coffers from donations, with $100,000 coming from libertarian Howard Rich, a retired New York real estate investor with ties to the Koch brothers and also serves on the board of the Cato Institute. Rauner told the Sun-Times that he also plans to make “a major financial commitment” to the Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits, but would not detail just how much that commitment will be.
“It’s going to be a lot,” he responded to the Sun-Times' request for an approximate figure. “We’ll see what we need to raise. I don’t really know. We’re going to raise whatever’s needed.”
Rauner also posted a new video on his website about the ballot effort:
As part of the push, the Republican would like to cut term limits in the Illinois House and Senate to eight years and reduce the size of the Illinois Senate to 41 from 59. Rauner would also like to see the Illinois House increase in size to 123 from 118 and require a two-thirds vote by lawmakers to override a veto from the governor as opposed to the current three-fifths rule.
“Too many in Springfield are part of a broken system that puts getting re-elected first and allows the special interests and government union bosses to effectively own the politicians,” Rauner said in a statement. “At the same time, Illinois is full of politicians who use their power to enrich themselves as well as their political allies. It’s time to put the citizens first and that is what this amendment will do.”
Rauner is hoping to get enough signatures in support of the changes to get a constitutional amendment placed on the 2014 ballot.
Comments
Login or register to post comments