INTRO MUSIC : “Maybe Tomorrow” by The Chords
Philip Blumel: U.S. Term Limits is marching on Washington this week in the wake of an uproar over congressional pay increases. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of June 17, 2019.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Our Executive Director, Nick Tomboulides, will be delivering expert testimny about congressional term limits to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution on Tuesday at the capitol. Let’s get some color on this opportunity from the man, himself.
Philip Blumel: Hey, Nick.
Nick Tomboulides: Hey, Phil.
Philip Blumel: So you’re headed to Washington this week, pretty exciting.
Nick Tomboulides: I am, yes. Mr. Term Limits is going to Washington. I have received an official invitation from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution. This is a hearing called Keeping Congress Accountable, Term Limits in the United States, and it is taking place Tuesday, 3:30 Eastern Time, in the afternoon. It’s a fantastic opportunity. This is the first time in over 20 years that a term limits bill will get debated on Capitol Hill. And it really is like marching into the lion’s den, because this is the first time we’re going to have the opportunity to make our case directly to United States senators.
Nick Tomboulides: I have been called to testify. I have five minutes to make opening remarks, and then I’m going to get the chance to interact with the senators on this committee in a Q&A-type format. Ted Cruz is, obviously, is a big term limits supporter. He is the lead sponsor of the U.S. Term Limits Amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1. So we know that he’s in our corner, but there are a lot of career politicians on this committee, as well, and they most definitely are not our supporters. So I’m really looking forward to engaging with them. It should be fun.
Philip Blumel: Okay, that said. 2:30 on Tuesday.
Nick Tomboulides: 3:30. It was initially 2:30, but it just got postponed by an hour, so 3:30 p.m., and you should be able to catch that on one of the C-Spans. If you’re looking for a good alternative to Ambien, C-Span is a great network. I think I might be on C-Span 47. It’s going to be competing with HDMI Output One for ratings.
Philip Blumel: Well, I tell you something, it’s going to be exciting when you’re testifying to a bunch of long-term incumbents, who oppose term limits, putting forth the message the way you do right here on this podcast every week. I know what you’re going to say, but I’m really excited hearing about what their reaction is going to be. This is going to be fun.
Nick Tomboulides.: And these aren’t just incumbents. These are, there are some poster children for term limits on this committee.
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides: Mazie Hirono, the Senator from Hawaii.
Philip Blumel: Dick Durbin’s on this committee, right?
Nick Tomboulides: Dick Durbin is on the committee. He’s been in DC for 36 years, was in the House, and then jumped over to the Senate. He is always a diehard opponent of term limits. I’m really looking forward to mixing it up with him. Hopefully, he does show up for the hearing. We don’t know if we’re going to have full attendance. One of the reasons we advocate term limits is because often, senators and congressmen don’t show up to do their jobs, and that’s a huge problem, but I’m hoping we get solid attendance at this one.
Philip Blumel: Kamala Harris is on this committee, as well. She might be out politicking, running for president, but if she’s there, it’s probably a good thing for her to get this message, too. This is what the people want, and she needs to be informed about some of the details of it. You’ll be making that case to her. She needs to be schooled on this. You’re not going to be the only expert testifying on the subject, right?
Nick Tomboulides: I know that there’s going to be three in favor of term limits, and two against because the chairman is on our side, and he’s invited three pro-term limits people. I’m one of them. I don’t know who the other two are. I know that one of the opponents is a guy named Casey Burgat, who is, I think, with the Brookings Institution. He’s written an article about why he doesn’t like term limits. He’s been invited to provide the opposing view.
Nick Tomboulides: Interestingly, I will also be debating Casey in the morning of the 18th on C-Span on the TV program Washington Journal, which airs from nine to 10 a.m. We’re going to be having a round table discussion about it, and then we’re going to be taking calls from listeners. So you’re going to actually have two bytes at the term limits Apple on Tuesday, nine o’clock on C-Span, and then 3:30 in the afternoon, as well.
Philip Blumel: Okay, so this will be a good warmup for your testimony then in the morning. That’s great. Oh, I’m excited about this. Ted Cruz is the person that put this together. Do we have any other information about the origins of it? I mean, why are they choosing to do that at this time?
Nick Tomboulides: I think they are choosing to do it because the American people, frankly, have given them no choice. We have been pounding the pavement, pounding on the doors of Capitol Hill, and demanding a hearing on term limits for a very long time. U.S. Term Limits circulates a petition on our website. We go to events and we ask people to sign this petition. That’s a pretty serious thing. We’re doing that for a serious reason because we want to impress upon these members of congress, that term limits deserves their attention. And I think they’ve finally gotten the wake-up call, and they finally understand how important this is to the public.
Nick Tomboulides: Another critical aspect has to be the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the most recent former president, Barack Obama, coming out for it. It’s kind of hitting a critical mass, an overwhelming number of people want this to happen, and congress is realizing we ignore this at our own peril. If we keep ignoring this, it’s going to make us look awful. Not that they don’t already look awful, but they’re going to look even worse, and a lot of them might get voted out of office for refusing to listen to the peoples’ will. I don’t know how you can call yourself a representative body if you’re not going to represent the 82% of Americans who want term limits.
Philip Blumel: Everyone listening to this podcast can participate in your testimony by sending emails to the senators on the subcommittee, and basically echoing your support for term limits. This will be most effective coming from constituents of the senators on the committee, so that would be listeners from Texas, Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, California, Nebraska, and Tennessee. If you live in any of those states, go to the website, the Term Limits website, termlimits.com/sjr1, that’s for Senate Joint Resolution 1, which is Senator Cruz’s bill, and use the form there to send these senators a call for supporting term limits.
Nick Tomboulides: And look, it doesn’t always work this way because Washington is so corrupt, but the purpose of a subcommittee is to gather as much information about a subject, and as much public input as it possibly can, and then make a recommendation to the larger committee on whether an issue should move forward or not. So in our case, I may be the person who’s sitting in this hearing, and presenting some testimony on term limits, but these senators are going to want a holistic view on the issue.
Nick Tomboulides: They’re going to consider not just what I say, but what people from all over America are saying, and sending into them. This is why I definitely encourage everybody in these states to call these senators, send them an email, make your feelings known. The bill that we’re advocating is, it’s very easy to remember, Senate Joint Resolution 1, it’s the one introduced by Ted Cruz, would impose a three-term limit on House members, six-years, two-term limit on Senators, 12-years. It’s very simple, it’s the fastest, best way to drain the swamp.
Philip Blumel: Yep.
Scott Tillman: Hello, this is Scott Tillman, the National Field Director with U.S. Term Limits. Not all elections are held in even years. Most of us have experience with elections at odd times, special election, local municipal elections, elections to fund schools, libraries, or other specific projects seem to happen throughout the year. States are not at all consistent when it comes to election dates. Most states do hold elections for state legislature at the same time as they hold their congressional elections for the U. S. House and Senate. These occur in even years.
Scott Tillman: Normally, a primary occurs early in the year, and a general election is scheduled for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. A few states don’t follow this tradition for their state legislative elections. Instead, candidates stand for election in the odd years. Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia all have odd year elections for their state legislature. These sates vote on their congressional candidates in even years, like the rest of us, but the State House and State Senate are up in the odd years.
Scott Tillman: Virginia’s primary election was Tuesday, June 11th, 2019, 13 Virginia candidates have pledged to support congressional term limits, seven of those candidates remain after Tuesday’s primary. In the Senate, Republican Jennifer Kiggins in the 7th District, Republican Gary Higgens in the 13th District, and Democrat Flo Ketner in the 19th District. In the House, Republican Shannon Kane in the 21st District, Democrat Joshua Cole in the 28th District, Republican Nicholas Freitas in the 30th District, and Democrat Kevin Washington in the 97th District.
Scott Tillman: These candidates have pledged to support a resolution that will require Congress to call a convention for the sole purpose of congressional term limits. If you have access to a candidate, please ask them to sign our pledge. Pledges are available at termlimits.com.
Philip Blumel: We had an uproar last week, when the Congress proposed or was proposing to raise its own pay, and there was an immediate firestorm from the people. It did not require any organization from any groups, or anything else. It was just immediate, and it was loud.
Nick Tomboulides: Of course. Of course, people are getting up early every day, and they’re going to work, and they’re not making nearly as much as Congress makes, and they’re all working much harder, here in the real world. In the real world, how much you get paid is a direct result of how hard you work, and how much you accomplish.
Philip Blumel: How productive you are, sure.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, only in this fantasy world of the United States Congress, you believe you can deserve a raise for accomplishing jack shit.
Philip Blumel: Yeah.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s amazing, and it really underscores the arrogance of these people, and the elitism, how out-of-touch they are, how disconnected they are from their constituents. Maybe if we had a solid 20-30 year track record of Congress solving the big problems in the United States, solving the healthcare crisis, solving the immigration crisis, balancing the budget, paying down the debt. Maybe if they had a track record of accomplishment, we could begin to consider this, but they have been atrocious.
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides: In every respect, and it’s only getting worse. If Congress were compensated, based on how well they perform, they would owe us money.
Philip Blumel: That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides: In my opinion.
Philip Blumel: But instead, they currently make a $174,000 a year, which doesn’t put them in the top one percent, but it’s a solid income, puts you in about the top 15% of income earners in this country.
Nick Tomboulides: They have to be sensitive to the public’s concerns about the pay raise because right now, at this early stage of their careers, they can potentially be voted out.
Philip Blumel: That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides: But that won’t be true, once they become more senior, and it’s certainly not true for leadership, Kevin McCarthy and Steny Hoyer, I find it so fascinating how this is a bipartisan deal that’s been struck to raise congressional salaries.
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides: How often do you see a bipartisan deal struck to actually help the American people? Like there’s no bipartisan deal on immigration, there’s no bipartisan deal on healthcare, there’s no bipartisan deal on taxes. The only bipartisan deals we get are these ones that are done for self-enrichment for members of Congress. That’s the only time Congress can ever get along, the one issue they agree on is that they should all be living high on the hog. It’s amazing.
Philip Blumel: Yeah.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s like Benjamin Franklin said, “If you put before congressmen a post of honor that’s also a post of profit, like if you can use public office for your own personal gain, people will move heaven and Earth to obtain those offices.” That’s the problem that we have right now in Congress.
Philip Blumel: And they do.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s not just the high salary, it’s also all the benefits that they’re accruing off the books. Insider trading, investment opportunities that the public don’t receive, they have a really posh pension system, they get 200 days off every year, they get free parking at the airport, free gym membership, free haircuts, all of this just accumulates into a benefits package that is so alluring for members of Congress, and they never want to give it up.
Philip Blumel: That’s it. It’s interesting that AOC, who is a pop star freshman, Democrat from New York, she favored the pay increase. Let’s listen to her.
Alexandria O. C: We should be fighting for pay increases for every American worker. We should be fighting for a $15 minimum wage, pegged to inflation so that everybody in the United States, with the salary, with the wage gets a cost of living increase. Members of Congress, retail workers, everybody should get cost of living increases to accommodate for the changes in our economy. And then when we don’t do that, it only increases the pressure on members to exploit loopholes, like insider trading loopholes, to make it on the [inaudible 00:13:31].
Philip Blumel: Well, how about that. She’s putting retail workers, retail employees in this net, in the same. She’s acting as if Congressmen are like laying bricks, or something every day. It’s ridiculous.
Nick Tomboulides: If she keeps talking like that, the voters are going to send her back to retail, pretty soon.
Philip Blumel: And she just got a huge raise, she was bartending in New York. She gets sent to Washington as a Congressperson. She’s making a $174,000 a year, and there’s other perks, too, that come with that, by the way, and she’s already fishing for a $4,500 annual raise, talking about how tough it is to live in Washington, DC, I’m not impressed.
Philip Blumel: In fact, I’m really shocked that she’s already walking down that path, being so fresh in office, but she’s apparently falling in love with the trappings of Washington. We already know that she’s very much in love with the power of Washington to transform society, that’s sort of her political shtick. So maybe this is just par for the course for her, but I was shocked.
Nick Tomboulides: And don’t believe that Congress members like her aren’t already living a pretty posh lifestyle in Washington, DC. Yes, it’s expensive to live there, but for a $174,000 a year, even higher salaries for members of leadership, you can get a great apartment, and you can live very comfortably. There’s no reason why they need a raise, they’re already making four-times the personal median income for an American. It’s like how elitist, how out-of-touch are you if you think you need even more than that? I think it’s stunning.
Philip Blumel: Yep.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s offensive, actually.
Philip Blumel: Paul Jacob is a Board Member of U. S. Term Limits, and President of the Liberty Initiative Fund.
Paul Jacob: Today’s Common Sense is entitled What Tiananmen Inspired. Why did term limits spring up in the 1990s? Term limitation has a long history in America, of course, and all the way back to Aristotle. But why the resurgence? I remember opponents to term limits suggesting that Americans were frustrated with slow economic growth. Not likely. In restoring faith in Congress, a 1993 article in the Yale Law and Policy Review, Authors Kimberly Corson, Thomas Mann, Norman Orienstan, and Todd Quinn recognized that the 1990s are different because the climate for far-reaching political reform is ripe, but why?
Paul Jacob: For seven weeks in 1989, Chinese students protested for freedom and greater democracy, joined by others until more than a million people filled Tiananmen Square. Americans were deeply moved by their makeshift goddess of democracy, resembling our Statue of Liberty, as well as by the students’ demands, which read much like our Declaration of Independence. Then, all that hope was doused, courtesy of the butchers of Beijing. Five months later, the Berlin Wall came down, followed by the overthrow of Communism throughout Europe. Then the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, no more Cold War. Americans, liking an external enemy for the first time in decades, and with Tiananmen’s Tank Man fresh in our minds, could at last safely, take a good look at our own government. We did not like what we saw.
Paul Jacob: In 1990, Americans in three states, California, Colorado, and Oklahoma, used direct democracy by petitioning term limit initiatives onto the ballot. All three won. In 1992, U. S. Term Limits rallied voters to pass initiatives in a record 14 states. Sadly, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest did not usher in freedom for China, yet they lit fires in hearts all across the globe, including mine.
Paul Jacob: This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. For more Common Sense, go to thisiscommonsense.com.
Philip Blumel: The Democratic field for President of the United States is still expanding, and boy, I tell you, Ken Quinn has been doing such a great job getting these candidates on record, with their position on term limits.
Nick Tomboulides: He’s been after them like a bloodhound, like a man possessed.
Philip Blumel: Yep. And he scored again this week with Governor Jay Inslee. He’s the Governor of Washington, he also served in Congress for over a decade, and here we have a clip of Governor Jay Inslee at a campaign event, telling us his position on term limits.
Jay Inslee: I’m more of a fan of term limits the old fashioned way, which when people don’t do their job, they get thrown out of office.
Philip Blumel: Oh, there it is.
Nick Tomboulides: Oh.
Philip Blumel: There it is, again. We already have term limits, they’re called elections. Oh, this is just the most horal cliché. I guess they’re tired of it.
Nick Tomboulides: Do we, by the way?
Philip Blumel: Yeah.
Nick Tomboulides: And is Jay Inslee, by the way, very active on trying to repeal the president’s term limits, because the president is also an elected position. So I’m just wondering, why do we only have elections with respect to Congress, but not with respect to the President? It just seems to me, if these guys didn’t have double-standards, they’d probably have no standards at all.
Nick Tomboulides: But moving on, simple fact is, at the congressional level, we don’t really have elections in this country. Over 80% of all the elections for Congress every two years, are either unopposed, uncontested, or under-contested. Meaning, that nobody, either nobody is running against the incumbent, or there’s a candidate running against the incumbent who is totally unserious, not raising any money, not campaigning seriously, not offering a real-
Philip Blumel: Basically, there’s no chance, nobody thinks they have a chance.
Nick Tomboulides: No chance.
Philip Blumel: No, it’s for show.
Nick Tomboulides: And what that means, is that millions of Americans have no functional choice at election time.
Philip Blumel: Right.
Nick Tomboulides: They have been denied a choice, it’s entirely undemocratic, and the reason they don’t have a choice is because there are huge deterrents to serious goal-oriented people that want to run for office. Money is a big one. You need $2.5 million to run against an incumbent, and have a decent chance of unseating them. Who just has $2.5 million sitting around?
Philip Blumel: Right. Well, incumbents do, that’s who, because when they announced they are going to run for reelection, and all of a sudden, bang, the coffers are filling up with money, without making their first phone call from all of these pacts and organizations that view them as a secure supporter of what they have going on.
Nick Tomboulides: Right.
Philip Blumel: And more than 90% of all pact money goes to incumbents and it’s automatic.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, all you have to do is, the minute that you re-register for reelection, the minute you put your name on the ballot, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars are going to flow into that campaign account, and nobody can compete with that. So anyone who’s got half a brain sitting on their shoulders, concludes to themselves, “I’m not going to bother. I’m not even going to run against these incumbents. I’m going to wait for this guy to retire, die, or get indicted, wait for the seat to come open, and then I’ll vie for it. But the problem is, these seats don’t open up for decades because there’s no term limits in Washington.
Philip Blumel: That’s right. If we have term limits, we would have an open seat in every single district, every six-
Nick Tomboulides: Guaranteed.
Philip Blumel: Or eight years, or whatever the term limit is, yeah. Guaranteed. And if you doubt that, I mean, how could you doubt this, but if you doubt that we do not have competitive elections in this country, look at the statistics. We have incumbents running for their own seat, winning about 95% of the time since 1970. There is no competition for these seats, incumbents win. It’s automatic because the incumbents have so many advantages.
Philip Blumel: And I know that I live in a district in South Florida, where I went to the polls last year to vote for my member of Congress, and there was nobody’s name on the ballet. Lois Frankel, my representative, did not have any competition, no one ran against her, and therefore, there was no line on the ballot for Congress.
Philip Blumel: So when they say, “Oh, we have term limits already, they’re called elections,” no we’re not. In 2018, there were 41 seats in the House that had no challenger, and that’s actually a small number. That’s less than usual. In 2016, there were 61 seats, no competition. In 2014, 76 seats, there was nobody’s name on the ballot. These elections are not being held.
Nick Tomboulides: Right.
Philip Blumel: And when you look at this amount of money that goes into these races, and the money that’s automatic going to these incumbents, it’s a slog, and it’s built to stop challengers from beating incumbents. The whole system’s based on protecting incumbents from challenge, to protect themselves from competition, which has the effect of preventing the citizenry from weighing in on who represents us.
Nick Tomboulides: And of course, it’s the incumbents who write those campaign finance rules for their own benefits, write those rules to deter challengers for their seats really puts a chilling effect on otherwise well-intended people, who might decide to run for office. They simply decide not to run, based on the fact that there’s such significant barriers to entry.
Philip Blumel: Right.
Nick Tomboulides: And by the way, once in a while, you do see a pretty competitive primary in Congress. Once in a blue moon, you do see it. But it tends to happen because a challenger arises, who is biographically not very dissimilar to the incumbent. It might be another politician, who’s also got a stream of special interest connections, fundraising connections, who can help fund their campaign.
Nick Tomboulides: But that’s not really a way to change Washington, it’s still a barrier for ordinary people. Just because the political elite might be able to run primaries against one another sometimes, does not mean that we have a fair and balanced system.
Philip Blumel: We’re not going to have competitive elections, we’re not going to have real representation in this country until we get term limits. And I tell you what, we shouldn’t give a pay raise to these guys until they do some of the work of the people, and term limits are one of those things.
Nick Tomboulides: Amen.
Philip Blumel: That’s all for this week’s episode. Thanks for joining us. Next week, we hope to have clips of Nick from the Senate hearings, and also the Washington Journal TV program. I’m particularly interested in hearing the reaction it gets up there in the belly of the beast. Remember, if you live in any of these states, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Illinois, Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, California, Nebraska, or Tennessee, Nick needs your help this week.
Philip Blumel: Please go to termlimits.com/sjr1, as in Senate Joint Resolution 1, and send a message to your senator in support of term limits, and Senate Joint Resolution Number 1. Ask your friends and family in these states to help out, too, right now. That’s termlimits.com/sjr1.
Philip Blumel: Lastly, let’s keep those comments about our podcast coming to podcast@termlimits.com. We want to know what you like about our podcast, and how it can be improved. Until next week, thank you.
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links : “Maybe Tomorrow” by The Chords
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Kenn Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)
