This is why it’s time to strengthen Florida’s term limit laws

Between 1983 and 2021, Michael Madigan spent 36 years as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. After being convicted in federal court for 10 count corruption, Madigan is about to serve a different kind of term.

As Madigan is crammed into prison, he should be a caution substance for those who are still crying about the laws limiting Florida term. Although Illinois had no term limits, the Florida Constitution limits state legislators or members of the Senate to eight years. This law was adopted directly by our people in 1992, not by politicians, and there was 77% of the vote. It protects us from career politicians like Madigan. Madigan gives him a long tenure and gets drunk on power and begins to abuse it for personal gain.

Madigans are not in any way an abnormality. In 2016, Sheldon Silver, a 21-year speaker in New York, was jailed for pocketing more than $5 million in her pocket in a complex bribery scheme. Earlier this year, longtime New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez was given 11 years in prison for accepting a gold stick in exchange for inappropriate aid to a foreign government. Careerism and corruption are always closely linked.

Due to time limits, this scale and complexity scandal does not occur in Florida. Of course, we are not corrupt. This requires reforming human nature. But we use period limits to place a check of tenure and rog haughtiness that allows corruption to flourish.

The speakers of the Florida home have only been wielding electricity for two years, so we take them away from the opportunity to build an empire. Legislators will only be in office for eight years, so we will bring them back into the private sector before corruption sneaks into their actions.

Now, at the upcoming legislative meeting in Tallahassee, our lawmakers have the opportunity to further improve our good time limit laws. Senate Joint Resolution 536, introduced by Senator Blaise Ingoglia, replaces the eight-year consecutive limit with the eight-year lifetime limit.

Currently, Florida state representatives and senators are forced to leave in eight years (16 years in total when serving in the House and Senate). But they can rest and come back. Sometimes this break is pathetic and short. For example, this year, Sen. Debbie Mayfield is running again for the Senate after his term was restricted in November. In 2015, Tampa Rep. Jamie Grant oddly claimed that his term limit clock had been reset after sitting down for just 169 days. If there is a loophole in the law in the restrictive law, power seekers like Mayfield and Grant will try to take advantage of it.

For their great achievements, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Code Bird recently took the fight to the state Supreme Court, arguing that conditioned restrictions on law should still ban ambitious politicians like Mayfield and Grant. Unfortunately, the court opposed it.

This is exactly why you need to pass the SJR 536. It cuts down these abuses while creating councils that really work for people. The bill could also be called the “End Career Politicians Act.”

Nick Tombouldies is the CEO of U.S. Term Restrictions, based in Orlando.