By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – When a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly knocks on your door, Gov. Bruce Rauner wants you to ask this question: Have you signed the People’s Pledge?

The pledge, signed by Rauner and Springfield-area GOP candidates at a Springfield factory Wednesday morning, vows to put legislative- and executive-branch term limits on the ballot and also to elect somebody other than incumbent Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) as speaker.

Rauner said staying in the legislature since 1971 and being speaker for more than three decades is “corruption at its core” and promises to serve as governor no more than two terms.

“When we collected over 600,000 signatures so you could get term limits on the ballot, so you could vote term limits up or down five years ago, Mike Madigan and his funders — (JB) Pritzker and the Chicago political machine — they sued us in state court, and they won in state court,” Rauner said.

Rauner was not interested in pledges when a pro-choice group asked him to sign one promising to uphold the tenets of an abortion bill he signed. This is different, he says, because he’s trying to change the Constitution to force term limit.

The event was a day after Rahm Emanuel announced he would not seek a third term as mayor of Chicago, and Rauner reacted by saying he works for all of Chicago. Asked about the contrast between those words Tuesday and the anti-Chicago rhetoric Wednesday, Rauner said Chicago’s a great city — with awful corruption.