by Jerry Agar

John Bambenek's initiative, the Putback Amendment comes from his belief that, "After years of dysfunction under multiple governors, years of legislation passed in the dark of night without any ability of citizens to see the laws, years of unbalanced budgets that are usually passed well beyond the deadline, it is clear that the Illinois General Assembly is broken."

John Bambenek calls himself a political reformer. He is the co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition and one of the chief proponents of the Constitutional Convention vote that took place in 2008.  He lives in Champaign, Illinois.

The amendment calls for term limits, more citizen control over redisticting, and quite a number of other items.  I spoke to Bambenek about his effort, and you can hear it here.