Philip Blumel: It’s unanimous. The North Dakota High Court upholds the people’s term limits. Hi, Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement. This is episode 287, published on June 29, 2026.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Is there a World Cup of corruption? It certainly seems politicians the world over are in some kind of perverse competition to see who can be the most arrogant, the most brazen, the most unconstrained by law and decency. Well, fortunately, in North Dakota last Thursday, the State Supreme Court raised a red card and put a stop on an illegal scheme attempting to repeal voter-approved eight-year term limits in that state. First, some background. In 2022, term limits supporters collected signatures to put eight-year term limits on the ballot. In November of that year, the voters responded with a resounding yes vote on Constitutional Measure Number One. Well aware that politicians will go to nearly any length to repeal or weaken term limits, the measure included language to protect against the legislature’s obvious conflict of interest.
Philip Blumel: They included this language: “Notwithstanding the Legislative Assembly’s authority to propose amendments to this Constitution under Article 4, Section 16 thereof, the Legislative Assembly shall not have authority to propose an amendment to this Constitution to alter or repeal the term limitations established in Section 1 of this Article. The authority to propose an amendment to this Constitution to alter or repeal the term limitations established in Section 1 of this Article is reserved to the initiative petition of the people under Article 3 of this Constitution.” This is from Article 14… Article 15, sorry. Section 4 of the North Dakota Constitution. In other words, the people put term limits in the North Dakota Constitution, and if they change their minds, the people can repeal them. The term-limited politicians cannot. So, how did the North Dakota legislators respond? Well, they almost immediately proposed an amendment to the Constitution to alter the term limitations.
Philip Blumel: This measure, also called Constitutional Measure Number One, was supposed to appear on this November’s ballot, but it won’t now. The High Court’s decisive, unanimous ruling orders the Secretary of State to completely remove Constitutional Measure Number One, formerly Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, from the general election ballot, declaring the legislature’s actions [foreign language]. Void from the very beginning. The unanimous opinion was authored by the Chief Justice, Lisa Fair McEvers. Now, the legal battle on this was ignited after the Legislative Assembly passed SCR 4008 during the 2025 session, trying to force a repeal of voter-enacted safeguards. Former members of the original term limits initiative sponsoring committee, Terence B. Bjerke and Leverett Ole Larson, filed a petition in January 2026 to stop the law-breaking measure in its tracks.
Philip Blumel: The state legislature fiercely fought the petition using a laundry list of procedural excuses. They claimed the issue wasn’t ripe, that citizens lacked standing, and even, bizarrely, arguing that restricting their ability to alter term limits violated the US Constitution. Come on. Well, the Supreme Court thoroughly rejected all of these defenses, ruling that because the legislature failed to follow mandatory constitutional steps, immediate judicial intervention was necessary. By granting a formal writ of injunction against Secretary of State Michael Howe, the court has ensured that North Dakota’s hard-won term limits, initiated and approved by the citizens, remain intact.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: Taylor Sheridan is a writer, director, and producer of multiple series and films, including Landman, Lioness, The Madison, Sicario, and Hell or High Water. He’s also a restaurateur, rancher, and author. Beyond all this, he’s an advocate of congressional term limits. Here he is on the Joe Rogan show from last week.
Taylor Sheridan: These politicians right now who are doing all of us a tremendous disservice in Washington, I feel, our elected officials, because they’re not thinking beyond this next election, and maybe they never have.
Joe Rogan: Right. They never have.
Taylor Sheridan: Right? But they were better at hiding it, maybe…
Joe Rogan: I think there was no internet.
Taylor Sheridan: Well, true.
Joe Rogan: I think that’s what it is. There was no social media.
Taylor Sheridan: But I think we’ve reached a point, I think, the most important legislation that we could pass right now is term limits. I think 12 years tops in Congress, and I think probably 12 years in the Senate. Two six-year terms in the Senate. Six…
Joe Rogan: That’s more than enough time.
Taylor Sheridan: Yeah.
Philip Blumel: Joe is right. 12 years is more than enough. In fact, the actual Congressional Term Limits Amendment bill, sponsored by 135 members of Congress so far, would impose a 12-year limit on the Senate, but only a six-year limit on the US House. Next, a great new poll. Yeah, yeah, I know. Polling on term limits is sort of boring. No matter where pollsters go or who they ask, they get the same answer. People want term limits, but here’s an interesting wrinkle to the old polling story. Scott Rasmussen of RMG Research recently asked registered voters if, given the opportunity, they would vote to fire the entire Congress immediately, and the answer was unequivocally, hell yes.
Philip Blumel: 68% of voters, weighted by geography, gender, age, race, and education to reasonably reflect the nation’s voters, answered yes. Only 13% said they would keep the current Congress, and 19% were unsure, but Rasmussen didn’t stop there. This is even better. The pollster asked if a group of randomly selected American citizens, one from each congressional district, would do a better job than the current Congress. 54% of the voters said yes. Only 19% disagreed, while 26% were unsure. Now think about that. More than half of the country believes that pulling names out of a hat would yield a better, more effective legislative body than the experienced and well-funded incumbents currently running the country. These are fun questions, but they point to a serious solution, term limits for the US Congress.
Philip Blumel: Next, an update on term limits scofflaw and all-around crook, the former US Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of South Florida. As we have reported in previous episodes of No Uncertain Terms, Cherfilus-McCormick signed the US Term Limits pledge when running for Congress in a special election in 2021. Then, after winning, she refused to live up to the terms of the pledge and co-sponsor the Congressional Term Limits Amendment bill, but that’s not all. After winning two terms in 2022 and 2024, she was indicted and later convicted of 15 federal counts of conspiracy and theft of government COVID funds, which she apparently used to fund her congressional campaigns. The bipartisan House Ethics Committee found her guilty on 25 of 27 ethics charges, and she resigned from the Congress in April of this year.
Philip Blumel: Now, guess what? She’s running for Congress. Yes, she paid her filing fee and is actively running for her old seat, Florida Congressional District 20, against current US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who changed districts. The election is in August. It’s an old, old, old story. From North Dakota to Florida, from the state legislatures to the federal one, crooked politicians will do just about anything to claim and then maintain their power. They always oppose term limits, and their arrogance knows no bounds. Politics attracts these people, and that’s why we need term limits.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify. It’s free.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The term limits convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the term limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a take action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators, urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the US Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media @ustermlimits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
