INTRO MUSIC : “Ether” by Gang Of Four
Philip Blumel: Your voices were heard in Missouri last week. Hi, this is Phillip Blumel, welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement, for the week of May 20th, 2019.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Voters will have the opportunity to finish the job in Missouri, after the state legislature last week approved a referendum on a bi-partisan basis, that would add 8 year term limits to all the state wide officers not currently covered by the states’ 8 year term limits law. The state-wide vote on 8 year term limits is a victory for the citizens and also for the measure’s chief sponsor, State Senator Tony Luetkemeyer of North West Missouri.
Philip Blumel: Over the weekend, Nick Tomboulides and I attended the National Convention of the Republican Liberty Caucus; a libertarian leaning organization of GOP partisans. I spoke to the group at their Saturday luncheon, reminding delegates of the RLC’s historical advocacy of term limits. Most notably, some of the organization’s early members, including founder Eric [Ripburg 00:01:05], traveled across the country collecting signatures to put congressional and state legislative term limits on state ballots in the 1990’s.
Philip Blumel: In 2005, the RLC lead the successful rebellion in Florida, where the Republican-lead legislature had placed a referendum on the ballot to weaken Florida’s 8 year term limits law. The legislature caved under the public outcry.
Philip Blumel: They hailed the second vote to remove the referendum from the ballot; this is the first and only time the legislature has ever done this. Who are all seers, the episode demonstrated the power of an active and principled caucus within a major party. I suggest to the delegates that the episode also demonstrated the political power of the term limit’s issue. That’s a valuable lesson for all political parties.
Philip Blumel: Throughout the weekend, we had an opportunity to talk to many RLC members, and even got a few on the record.
Nick Tomboulides: We’re here at the Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention, with Lee Evan Neher, who is the south central regional director of the Republican Liberty Caucus. He is a citizen activist, who is here to fight for the issues he believes in. Lee thank you for being a part of our podcast.
Lee Evan Neher: Thanks Nick, thanks for having me.
Nick Tomboulides: Just wanted to talk to you because you’re from Louisiana. This is a very unique state in the sense of, Louisiana is the only state out of the 15 that have term limits on their legislature, that passed it by legislative referral, meaning the politicians actually put it on the ballot. I believe it was back in 1995 … and then passed it into law. You have 12 year term limits on the state house, the state senate; how do you think term limits have worked out in Louisiana?
Lee Evan Neher: It’s a mixed bag, I still think that 12 years is still too long and there’s still crossover between both sides of whether you’re going in in the senate, and then going back into the house, and then there’s all these different things, but I really don’t think the term limits has gone far enough in Louisiana. I would even go into my own party and say that we have the longest serving state share in the entire Republican party; I think he’s served more than 40 years.
Nick Tomboulides: So you would favor term limits for party positions, as well as legislators?
Lee Evan Neher: Yes.
Nick Tomboulides: So you think Louisiana’s term limits are too long and they have loopholes which allow politicians to jump back and forth between the chambers?
Lee Evan Neher: That’s correct.
Philip Blumel: You know of course the reason why Louisiana had chose 12 years, it was not something that the people decided, because in every other state that imposed term limits on their legislature, it was done by the people via initiative.
Lee Evan Neher: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Philip Blumel: Louisiana was a legislative referral, so the politicians chose that 12 number, which is why it’s the outlier.
Lee Evan Neher: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Nick Tomboulides: We call those politician friendly term limits.
Lee Evan Neher: Yeah that’s right.
Philip Blumel: It’s interesting about what you say about the chair, because basically the reasons why you would advocate such a thing is the exact same reasons why you would for politicians, you know, there’s no room for new ideas, and also that person has amassed power over time, and they have constituencies within the party and so it could creates a situation where the party can progress, and no one else has the opportunity to take that position either so, interesting.
Nick Tomboulides: Now Lee, you identify as a constitutionalist, I’ve heard you talk about that. Obviously, term limits have to be done through with a constitutional amendment through Article 5, which means you can get a two thirds vote from congress, not exactly holding my breath on that one. Or you could get the states to do a run around congress and propose it on their own with the convention. What do you think of this idea of having states bypassing federal government and enacting congressional term limits with the convention?
Lee Evan Neher: Well, aside from being a part of the RLC, I’m actually a member of the Tenth Amendment Center. So states’ rights has been one of my biggest advocates and points.
Nick Tomboulides: So you do favor a convention then?
Lee Evan Neher: Absolutely. I think the more control the people have had over politics the better it is.
Nick Tomboulides: Awesome. Here’s your question for you, out of everyone in the current congress, who do you think is the biggest poster child for term limits?
Lee Evan Neher: Ooh. Let’s go with just the clichés here, we can go with Nancy Pelosi, we can go with … anybody that has been there for more than 30 years. Joe Biden himself has been there.
Nick Tomboulides: Thank you Lee Evan Neher, we appreciate your time.
Lee Evan Neher: Thank you
Nick Tomboulides: We’re at the Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention, I’m with Sue Moore, the Colorado state chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus. She is a citizen activist who is here to learn about all kinds of issues, participate in the process. Sue thank you so much for being here.
Sue Moore: You bet, thanks for having me.
Nick Tomboulides: Now I have to ask you, Colorado has one of the most expansive term limits laws in the country. I think when you guys passed this in 1990 it hit every single office from state house, state Senate, all the way down to city councils, county commissions, school boards, dog catchers, It’s all there under the sun. How do you think term limits have worked in the state of Colorado, in terms of getting more citizens involved in the process? Do you think it’s a good thing that you have citizen legislators there instead of career politicians?
Sue Moore: Right, no I think it’s worked really well in Colorado, it gets new people involved all the time, and I think it actually keeps our state legislature and our other elected officials fresh. We bring in new blood every couple of years, depending on the office and we couldn’t be happier. I think it works. Obviously if you’re a state house representative you can also run for state Senate, but keeping internal limits in place kind of keeps new blood coming in all the time.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, absolutely couldn’t agree more. Obviously the ways that you can get term limits for congress are with either a two thirds vote of congress, which is a little like getting the chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders, or with a convention called by the state legislatures, where you need two thirds of states to say, “We want term limits on congress.” Are you familiar with that, and do you have an opinion on that idea, of the states going around Washington, to try to get this done, term limits for Congress?
Sue Moore: Right, yeah actually I was part of the Convention of States committee for a short time, and we’re totally on board with term limits and Val’s budget amendment, so as an organization we agree with those things. Actually in Colorado, we have not been able to pass that. There’s still a lot of resistance, some of which I understand, other organizations I don’t understand, that are pushing against that. In term of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado, we’re totally on board with that.
Nick Tomboulides: Awesome. Final question for you, Congress has a 10% approval rating, do you think that’s too high?
Sue Moore: Yeah. Among our members in the Republican Liberty Caucus I think that would be a high number, so yeah absolutely.
Nick Tomboulides: Cool, thank you so much, appreciate it.
Scott Tillman: Hi this is Scott Tillman, the national field director with the US term limits. I want to let you know about some upcoming events where you can connect with us to discuss term limits.
Scott Tillman: We will have a table at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit in Dallas, Texas, June 6th through 9th.
Scott Tillman: We’ll also be at Young Americans For Liberties conference in Memphis, July 28th and 29th.
Scott Tillman: We’ll be at Freedom Fest, July 17th through 20th, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Scott Tillman: Net Roots, July 11th through 13th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Scott Tillman: Western Conservatives Summit, July 11th through 13th in Denver, Colorado.
Scott Tillman: There are many events happening around the country. If you know of an event where you US term limits should be, please contact us with the details. There are three special elections currently scheduled to fill open US Congressional seats, and one to finish a senate term for Arizona Senate seat. We ask congressional candidates to sign the US term limits pledge. I pledge that as a member of congress, I will co-sponsor and vote for the US term limits amendment of three house terms, and two senate terms, and no longer limit.
Scott Tillman: There are 65 pledge signers in Congress now. In the May 21st, Pennsylvania 12th general election, we had one pledge signer Fred Keller. In the July 9th, North Carolina 3rd congressional district, Republican run-off, we have a signer versus signer situation with Joan Perry against Greg Murphy. In the September 10th North Carolina 9th special election, Republican Dan Bishop has signed our pledge. In the Arizona Senate election, both Martha McSally and Craig Brittain have signed the pledge.
Scott Tillman: If you have access to a candidate, please ask them to sign the US term limits pledge. The pledge is available at termlimits.org
Nick Tomboulides: Okay, I’m here with David Kahn, he is the chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Arizona and we’re sitting outside the Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention, which the business being just ended up. How’d it go David?
David Kahn: I think it went really well.
Nick Tomboulides: This is an organization that has a long history with the issue of term limits, and so we’re here, and I gave a presentation today, and you were there. And you, being from Arizona, I don’t know how aware you are of this, but right now in Arizona we have a term limits bill in the legislature, which has passed one of the chambers and not the other, as the session is drawing to a close. We are crossing our fingers and biting our nails on this. Now you personally have any particular views on the issue of term limits?
David Kahn: Personally I believe term limits are one of two critical issues for making our election process more fair and more competitive. The other issue would be gerrymandering, which is a more complicated issue to solve.
Nick Tomboulides: Right, it is. Right, who are you going to put in charge of making that decision, right?
David Kahn: Yes, and not only that, but how do you come with an objective fair way to do that?
Nick Tomboulides: One of the advantages of term limits is that, it’s a very simple solution that’s hard to corrupt, doesn’t address all the issues, but addresses some very well, and in a way that’s very difficult to corrupt, whereas gerrymandering, every attempt that we’ve seen to try to fix that tend to be corrupted by the incumbents that are in office who are writing the legislation to fix it. How has your RLC chapter grown over the years since you’ve been involved with it?
David Kahn: So the Arizona charter launched in January of last year. And at that point there were just the minimum of ten people to be a charter, and we have almost tripled in size since then. And we have garnered the support of half a dozen people in the state house, who don’t just want to work with us on issues, but want to see us grow as an organization and be a real voice within the party.
Nick Tomboulides: Oh, excellent. Okay great. And what kind of issues are you most focused on, or are you more working on campaigns to elect people, or more on issue campaigns, or what so far?
David Kahn: Well, we’re trying to be sensitive that there’s a difference between election season and legislative season. During the campaigns we look at candidates that resonate with our values. And in Arizona we do a legislative score-card after each session, so we know who the pro-liberty candidates are, and we’re working actively with them on their campaigns. But during the legislative session, our top issues are education, free trade, and criminal justice reform.
Nick Tomboulides: Criminal justice reform, interesting. Arizona’s making strides in that?
David Kahn: We haven’t had a lot of substanent change on this issue, but it’s an issue that’s been very strongly debated in our state house, and we believe it’s an issue that our voice can help make a difference on. Also as we look as a charter to grow, we think it’s an issue that attracts people to an organization, because very few organizations are considering this issue, which affects many people’s lives.
Nick Tomboulides: Right. Does the Goldwater Institute done work on this?
David Kahn: They have yes.
Nick Tomboulides: Okay, that’s probably helpful in this.
David Kahn: Yeah, we try to work with like-minded organizations near Arizona as much as possible.
Nick Tomboulides: Okay. On the US term limits website, that’s termlimits.com, there is a current actions tab that you can go to and pull down, and one of them is Arizona. And so I would urge you and your membership to check that out, because if you pull down that tab, current actions, then you’ll have a quick way to send a message to all of the legislators in the Arizona legislature, urging them to vote for the term limits convention bill, that we’re working on right now. And if that’s something we could get you to push you to your membership, we’d greatly appreciate it.
David Kahn: I would be absolutely happy to bring that up with my board and look at pushing something out to our membership. We’ve been very active on different bills we consider important throughout the term, and we are definitely as the convention wraps up are going to be looking at what do we need to focus on in these final days as the session approaches its end.
Stacey Selleck: Does power cause brain damage? Several times on our No Uncertain Terms podcast, Nick has referred to a study that suggests that subjects under the influence pf power act like they have suffered a traumatic brain injury. Naturally, this sounds immediately plausible to anyone who is as attentive to the US congress as we are. But seriously, brain damage? Maybe so. If you were to ask Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, he’d say yes. Keltner reports that powerful people tend to become more impulsive, less risk aware, and most importantly, less adept at seeing things from others’ point of view.
Stacey Selleck: His work was recently summarized in an article in the July – August 2017 issue The Atlantic, entitled Power Causes Brain Damage. See, it isn’t just us. Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuro-scientist at McMaster University in Ontario, more or less corroborates Keltner’s findings, from a different angle. While Keltner was examining the behaviors of the powerful, Obhi actually examined their brains. Using a trans-cranial magnetic stimulation machine, he finds that power appears to corrupt the specific neural process called mirroring, which is thought to be the corner-stone of empathy.
Stacey Selleck: In his atlantic article, Useem describes some interesting evidence of this phenomenon. A 2006 study asked participants to draw the letter E on their forehead for others to view. A task that requires seeing yourself from an observer’s vantage point. Those feeling powerful were three times more likely to draw the E the right way to themselves, and backwards to everyone else.
Stacey Selleck: Which calls to mind George W. Bush, who memorably held up the American flag backwards at the 2008 Olympics. “Powerful people stop simulating the experience of others,” Keltner says. Which leads to what he calls an “empathy deficit.” We like Andrew Heaton’s take on the research on Reason Blog, “Power-induced brain damage raises troubling questions about all those suits and technocrats who slink into Washington.”
Stacey Selleck: What if you need a fully functional orbital frontal lobe, to make decisions that affect millions? It certainly sounds like an important brain glob. Maybe the heady tonic of power makes leaders less wary of unforeseen consequences, or overly confident of their capacity to just solve everything. The anecdote to all the spiraling brain damage might be to put America on a power diet. Term limits anyone?
Nick Tomboulides: Nick Tomboulides with US term limits here on the No Uncertain Terms podcast. I am with Vernon Robinson at the Republican Liberty Caucus National Convention. Vernon why don’t you just tell us who you are exactly and a little bit about yourself.
Vernon Robinson: Hi, I’m Vernon Robinson, I’m the treasurer of Black Americans To Re Elect The President, and I was air-force academy class of ’77, and nuclear launch officer and Minute Men program. Became a college professor, ran a private foundation to give scholarships to low-income kids to go to private schools and escape the Titanic. Served eight years as a city council member, and ran for congress, learned how to raise money, and ran the national draft in Carson For President Committee. We raised $18 million, had 39,000 volunteers, and did 900 events to convince Dr. Carson and his wife to run for President.
Nick Tomboulides: So we’re here talking about a diverse array of issues, but more specifically, US term limits focuses on term limits, restoring the idea of the citizen legislature, what do you think of that?
Vernon Robinson: Well certainly the founders had no intention of the professional politician that likes [inaudible 00:18:24], they envisioned individuals who would serve for a limited time, and then return to a private life. As opposed to spend 36 years at the trough of the government.
Nick Tomboulides: I noticed that you said you served eight years on the city council. Do you think eight is a good amount of time for elected officials, so you’re kind of balancing experience with fresh ideas? If you could set a term limit for congress, what would it be.
Vernon Robinson: Whatever it is, it has to balance the virtues of a citizen legislature off against the permitted class in Washington, who may or may not take advantage of a three term limit, where the congressman’s average tenure is three years and the staffs, and the bureaucrats, and the lobbyists know a lot more about how Washington works than the baby legislators do. So, I don’t know what that magic number is, but certainly we’d be better served with citizen legislature, as opposed to a professional one.
Nick Tomboulides: When you look at Washington DC, who do you think is the poster child for term limits in your mind?
Vernon Robinson: The poster child for term limits … I would say Joe Biden since he was in Washington for 36 years, and says, “Trump’s the problem.” So, I don’t know. Nancy has to be way up there, and Maxine Waters.
Nick Tomboulides: I think we might be in Maxine Waters’ district right now, we’re here in Redondo Beach California.
Vernon Robinson: We’re really close. I think that they didn’t get sucked into-
Nick Tomboulides: The vortex.
Vernon Robinson: … the vortex of the dark hole which is the 43rd district of California, but …
Nick Tomboulides: Let me throw one more question at you, a lot of people have said, “Congress is never going never to vote for term limits on themselves, that’s like getting the demons to vote to shut down Hell.” So, we’re calling for states to bypass Washington DC and write term limits with a amendment convention, what do you think of that idea?
Vernon Robinson: Well, I’m not familiar with the technical features on an amendment convention. If you can limit it, the convention’s agenda, to the issue at hand, certainly that would be a good thing. The Founding Fathers tasked the constitutional convention to amend the Articles of Confederation, and they came up with a better idea, so …
Nick Tomboulides: All right smart guy.
Vernon Robinson: Well, I mean, you know …
Nick Tomboulides: Hey, here’s something to notice though. There were 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, did you know that 48 of the 55 delegates actually had a commission from their state to write a new constitution?
Vernon Robinson: I did not.
Nick Tomboulides: Congress has a 10% approval rating, do you think that’s too high?
Vernon Robinson: I think that at least 10% of the potluck is very charitable.
Nick T.: We’ll end on that note. Thank you so much.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. We’re about 40 episodes in with this program, and we enjoy putting it together each week, maybe too much. But of course, we’re also dead serious about winning this battle to reform congress. As a listener, do you think we’re striking the right balance? What do you like or don’t like about this podcast? Do you have any ideas, or advice? Do you listen on a phone, or computer? We want to hear from you, send us an email at podcast@termlimits.com. We’re going to collect our responses over the next month and review our podcast in light of them. And then we’re also going to pick out a respondee or three, and give out some prizes, of some kind, for doing so. We haven’t decided what it’ll be yet. Tune in next week and find out.
Stacey Selleck: The revolution isn’t being televised. Fortunately, you have the No Uncertain Terms podcast.
Philip Blumel: This podcast is made possible by the support of you, the American people, and your voluntary financial contributions, which can be made through our website at termlimits.com, thank you.
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links :
“Ether” by Gang Of Four, “Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Kenn Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)
