Governor Rauner Speaks at People's Pledge Event in Effingham

Statement

Today, Governor Rauner joined House candidates Blaine Wilhour, Darren Bailey, Chris Miller, and Effingham County GOP Chair Rob Arnold to promote The People's Pledge. Launched last week, The People's Pledgeasks candidates to sign in support of two things: term limits for all elected officials and a promise to vote for anyone but Mike Madigan as Speaker of the House.

At the event, the Governor Rauner said: "We promise to you, we promise to every citizen of Illinois, we promise to vote to put term limits on the ballot so you can decide, you can vote term limits up or down. We should give the power to you to decide if you want term limits. Don't block it like Madigan and his friends have. You should decide. Put term limits on the ballot, judges have said that's the one way they can be brought to the people. We need to put it on the ballot. These leaders here are doing just that.

The other part of the pledge is promise to vote for someone other than Mike Madigan to be speaker. He is elected every January by members of the General Assembly in the House. They've elected him for 35 years. That is wrong. No one should stay in power for 35 years. That is far, far too long, that is accumulating too much power. And as we all know, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have domination by an individual who should not be speaker.

This is not partisan. It's not about Republican vs Democrat. This is about good goverment. There are honest Democrats who actually love our communities and care about our children and our future. Elect one of them to be speaker if you're a Democrat, that's ok. There's no reason we should have one individual there for 35 years. We should vote for someone other than Mike Madigan to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. That's what this pledge does."

Governor Rauner speaks at The People's Pledge event in Effingham:
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