*This letter originally was printed in the Tuesday Feb. 16 edition of The Daily Eastern News

Dear editor,

From time to time people call for term limits.

What is usually meant is to have officeholders limited to a stated number of terms in office.

Our first president, President George Washington, limited himself to only two terms as president, providing an unwritten rule of term limits which lasted until 1940.

Term limits can be achieved by other means, as we think of how legislative bodies commit their own tyrannies of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Today’s Texas Constitution has a different version of term limits , time limits.

By law the Texas legislature is permitted to hold its sessions once every two years.

By law its sessions begin and end by certain dates.

Do the people’s business and go home! By law special sessions can be called, again with limits.

The purpose must be stated with no add-ons or riders permitted to the bill passed.

Do the business and go home! Limits!

Legislators are not paid and no pensions. Other states have had similar basic laws as the ground rules of government action.

Those who made such ground rules understood the human condition with our potential for greed – greed for money, greed for power.

This speaks to Eastern Illinois University and other unfunded state agencies, because this is what Illinois does not have – the right limits.

Instead, Illinois has a flawed constitution which is too permissive of legislative abuse.

Leonidas Miller, Mattoon resident