Between 1983 and 2021, Michael Madigan spent 36 years as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. After being found guilty in federal court on 10 counts of corruption, Madigan is about to serve a different kind of term — one where the only votes that matter are for who gets the top bunk.

As Madigan packs for prison, he should be a cautionary tale for those who still whine about Florida’s term limits law. While Illinois has never had term limits, the Florida Constitution limits members of our state House or Senate to no more than eight consecutive years in office. This law was adopted in 1992 directly by our people — not the politicians — with 77% of the vote. It protects us from career politicians like Madigan who, if handed long tenure, become drunk on power and start abusing it for personal gain.

Madigan is not some anomaly either. In 2016, Sheldon Silver, the 21-year speaker of New York State, was imprisoned for pocketing more than $5 million in a complex bribery scheme. Earlier this year, long-serving New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez was given an 11-year prison sentence for accepting gold bars in exchange for improper aid to foreign governments. Careerism and corruption have always gone hand-in-hand.

Due to term limits, scandals of this magnitude and complexity don’t happen in Florida. Of course, we aren’t corruption-free. That would require reinventing human nature. But we use term limits to place a check on the tenure and arrogance that allow for corruption to flourish.

Since speakers of the Florida House only wield power for two years, we deprive them of the chance to build empires. Since legislators only hold office for eight years, we return them to the private sector before a rottenness can creep into their conduct.

Now, in the upcoming legislative session in Tallahassee, our lawmakers have a chance to make our good term limits law even better. Senate Joint Resolution 536, introduced by Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, would replace the consecutive eight-year limit with a lifetime eight-year limit.

Currently, Florida’s state representatives and senators are forced to leave after eight years (a total of 16 years if they serve in the House and the Senate). But they can take a break and come back. Sometimes, this break is pathetically short. For example, this year, State Sen. Debbie Mayfield is again running for the Senate after being term-limited in November. Back in 2015, Tampa Rep. Jamie Grant bizarrely claimed his term limits clock had been reset after sitting out for just 169 days. If the term limits law has loopholes, power-seekers like Mayfield and Grant will try to take advantage.

To their great credit, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd recently took this fight to the State Supreme Court, arguing that the term limits law as-written should still bar overly ambitious politicians like Mayfield and Grant. Unfortunately, the court disagreed.

This is precisely why we need to pass SJR 536. It would curtail these abuses while creating a Legislature that truly works for the people. The bill might as well be called the “Ending Career Politicians Act” because it gets rid of the bums for good.