Philip Blumel: Corruption is on the run in Chicago, and perhaps Israel, too. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement, for the week of September 23rd, 2019.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Investigations and elections are elevating the issue of term limits as a solution for voters who are tired of being fleeced, and in Florida, voters may have the opportunity to reign in more of its politicians with this time tested reform. Once again, I’m here with U.S. Term Limits executive director, Nick Tomboulides. How you doing, Nick?
Nick Tomboulides: I am doing very well.
Philip Blumel: A very interesting story came across my desk. There’s a special agent, Jeffrey Sallet, who has led the FBI Chicago field office, not that long, since 2017, but he’s the guy that’s been overseeing all the federal investigations into the corrupt power brokers of that city.
Philip Blumel: He’s the guy that led the 14 count indictment against alderman Ed Burke, who we’ve talked about on this podcast, and other officials. And he took a job in Washington, so he’s leaving Chicago. And in sort of, I guess you can call it an exit interview, with the media, he brought up the fact that a solution to Chicago’s corruption problem could be … Guess.
Nick Tomboulides:: I don’t know. I’m drawing a blank.
Philip Blumel: It’s going to take you that long? Okay.
Nick Tomboulides:: I’m drawing a blank.
Philip Blumel: All right, well, I’ll help you. Term limits. With all of these indictments of these corrupt longterm officeholders in that city. The city just elected Mayor Lightfoot, who came out with the same conclusion that special agent Sallet did. That term limits are what’s needed to turn this city and state around. And of course, we’ve been talking about that since we started this podcast, and nearly every other episode, there’s some incident of corruption or other proof about the need for term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:: It’s kind of tragic, what’s actually happened to the people of Illinois, because obviously, they deserve a lot better from their elected leaders than what they’ve gotten. But from the standpoint of studying this relationship between power and tenure, there’s probably no better example.
Nick Tomboulides:: As Andrew Yang would say, “It’s just math. Power plus tenure equals corruption.” And in Illinois, they’re so just inextricably linked. The center of power in Illinois is Michael Madigan. He’s been the Speaker of the House for 36 years. He’s been in office 48 years. If Michael Madigan were a Congressman, he would be the longest serving member of Congress.
Nick Tomboulides:: And if you look at Illinois, it’s like the perfect example of what happens when you pump in so much political tenure, you never add any term limits. What you get is just an absolute disaster. The article you sent around says it best. The states that suffer corruption in its most severe forms are more likely to be states without term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:: Just reading this article, it’s amazing what’s been happening here. Reading some of the quotes from people who’ve worked with Madigan, reading quotes from a state inspector general who investigated him. She said, “Workers in the speaker’s office have a fear of retaliation, fear of losing their jobs, not having contracts renewed, losing access to the decision-making process, having opportunities taken away, having their ideas ignored, losing references to outside employment, or even being removed from the caucus.”
Nick Tomboulides:: So what has happened in the state is really remarkable. Through seniority, this one person has created such a culture of fear that he essentially wields absolute power. Nobody’s allowed to disagree with him.
Philip Blumel: And he is, well, let’s put it this way. When special agent Sallet was giving this sort of exit interview, he was pointing out that just because he’s leaving doesn’t mean these corruption investigations are going to cease because they’ve keep finding one after another after another of another case, which are all turning into indictments and convictions. And he said that, “Chicago should expect more to come, that our corruption program is extremely busy.” And the word on the ground there is that they’re closing in on Michael Madigan himself.
Nick Tomboulides:: It looks like that. Yeah, they’ve found lots of credible allegations of improper behavior by the speaker and by his staffers, which included bullying. And some sexual harassment charges. It really is amazing. Everyone in Illinois is in Madigan’s pocket. The judges are in his pocket, the property appraisers and local officials are in his pocket. He’s got his own law firm, which does property tax appeals. And if you want to get any business done in Illinois, you have to hire Madigan’s law firm. I’ve seen reports showing he’s probably one of the richest people in the whole state. How does that work when you’re a 48 year career politician? No one’s allowed to critique him. There really aren’t any Republicans or Democrats in Illinois anymore. It’s just Madigan loyalists and everybody else. And at best, they’ll probably be blackballed out of Illinois politics forever. At worst, their life’s going to be made into a living hell. So it’s sort of like a mini dictatorship inside of an American state. And it’s a great example of what happens when you let careerism run a muck in politics.
Philip Blumel: That’s it. We see it again, probably the biggest name that fell in Chicago due to the work of special agent Sallet was the fall of Ed Burke. But it certainly was not the only one, but he’s probably the biggest.
Nick Tomboulides:: Yeah, and Ed Burke, for those of you who don’t know, is the longest serving alderman in Chicago. He was elected in 1969 and he is still in power 50 years. So we said if Madigan were in Congress, he’d be the longest serving Congressman, if Madigan and Burke were in Congress, they would be number one and number one A. That’s how long they’ve been at it in Chicago and in Springfield. And this FBI investigation Sallet did, it showed that basically Burke is corrupt as they come. Another alderman was wearing a wire, he was recording Burke and Burke would use his power over businesses and these nonprofits to extract financial gain. He was threatening to deny or remodeling permit if a Burger King didn’t hire his own law firm to represent them. He was demanding bribes in exchange for taxpayer funding on these remodeling deals and demanding more contracts for his own company.
Nick Tomboulides:: And when the developer allegedly refused to line Burke’s pockets, Burke said, tell him to go himself and quote, “good luck getting it on the agenda in my committee.” So he was motivated not by doing the right thing, not by good policy but by greed. And I’m willing to bet when this guy was first elected in 1969 at 25 years of age, he was not probably this gluttonous, monster of corruption.
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides:: He transformed into that overtime. He mutated over many decades, probably got elected saying, yeah, I’m going to fill some potholes, pave some roads, clean up a few streets. But that probably got boring after awhile and it became…
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides:: Almost like a challenge to decide how can I exploit this to benefit myself? It’s almost a game of sorts for them and you win by getting away with it.
Scott Tillman: Hi, this is Scott Tillman, the national field director with US term limits. We ask candidates for Congress to sign a pledge to help get a term limits amendment to the US constitution. The pledge reads. 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. On September 10th two pledge centers, won election in North Carolina, Dan Bishop and Greg Murphy. We now have 69 members of the US Congress who have pledged to support the US term limits amendment. Please contact your representative and ask them to sign our pledge and to co-sponsor the US term limits amendment resolutions. Pledges are available at termlimits.com.
Philip Blumel: Well speaking of Florida. We’ve had some good news this last week regarding the school board term limits issue. If you recall, last session we had a bill that was going to put a measure on the ballot that would limit school boards across the state to eight years in office and this bill did very well in the legislature to a point, it went through three house committees, two Senate committees. It was basically waiting on the final votes and when the end of the session came, the votes were not held, but it came very close and it was revived. This last week, representative Anthony Sabatini from Howey-in-the-Hills brought the same bill back the exact same measure and looks like that it’s going to start its way through the process again and I know that you followed this very carefully last year, Nick. What makes us think that we’ll have more success this year?
Nick Tomboulides:: Well, we have been relentless in going around the state doing personal visits with state legislators and asking them to sign our term limits pledge, which is of course to stand by the eight year limits in Florida, but a benefit of that is folks who are willing to stand behind the eight year term limits for the state legislature are almost always willing to support school board term limits as well.
Nick Tomboulides:: They’ve seen how well the reform has worked. They’ve seen that it’s put a check on incumbency. It’s given us more competitive elections. It’s led to Florida being ranked number one in fiscal health and the most free state. Our education system has improved with term limits and we’ve actually been able to address various corruption issues that were around before term limits in a much better way now that we have it. So a lot of folks see the wisdom of it, they understand it’s enormously popular with voters. 82% of people in Florida want term limits. We expect to have a really energized grassroots base around the state fighting for this meeting with legislators, putting pressure on them. It’s an issue that’s got a lot of juice this year.
Philip Blumel: Right. It’s certainly necessary. In most states, even in big ones like New York and the big school boards, school districts across the country, like in New York and Houston and Chicago. Most school board members serve without pay. And it’s still sort of, even in those big cities has an aspect of this service connected to it. But in Florida, we pay our school board members and so it adds a little bit of danger there that you have self interest creep in. And in some of these districts, the larger ones like Miami Dade and Broward and Palm Beach, the salary is like $45,000 a year plus the perks that come with having political office. And so it starts attracting people that are more interested in this as a job. And then of course with no end to it as a career and it changes the incentives and it changes the interest that people running for it, that they’re starting to look at themselves rather than just what they can do to help out the schools. And also we’ve seen the budgets of these districts.
Nick Tomboulides:: Yeah, multi-billion dollar budget.
Philip Blumel: Billion dollars, that’s right.
Nick Tomboulides:: And it’s bad because if a big contract is getting awarded by the school district, you don’t know if it’s going to a certain contractor because that’s best for your kids or because it’s going to bring in the dough to help those members get re-elected.
Philip Blumel: That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides:: Every school board members, they’re lobbied aggressively by special interests, lobbied aggressively by developers. They’re overseeing multi-billion dollar budgets. They can raise taxes, they can issue bonds. I mean, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, these are full blown politicians now. They’re not just volunteers and they have to be treated as such. We’ve got a school board member in Florida, a guy named Keith Hudson who’s been in office since 1976, so 43 years. 13 years longer than I’ve been alive. I think Florida as a state has to just take a breath and say, okay, this is nuts.
Nick Tomboulides: Let’s pass term limits for these guys and I’m confident it’s going to happen in this session. It takes a three-fifths vote in both chambers to get it on the ballot.
Philip Blumel: That’s tough.
Nick Tomboulides:: We’ve got a great sponsor, Representative Sabatini. We’ve got Republicans and Democrats alike who’ve signed pledges and we support from governor DeSantis. 82% of voters want it. I think we can get it done.
Philip Blumel: If it shows up on the ballot, we will get it done.
Nick Tomboulides:: Yeah. Someone was asking me the other day, “so when this gets on the ballot, how much are you guys going to spend on the campaign?” And I said, “what campaign?”
Philip Blumel: Right.
Nick Tomboulides:: It’s term limits baby. When it’s on the ballot, it passes and you know, I hope the other side spends a lot on a campaign because it’s just going to be flushing money down the toilet and there’s nothing you can do to stop term limits once they’re on the ballot. Once they’re presented to voters in a fair and clearer way, it’s going to pass.
Stacey Selleck: Did you know we have a weekly national webinar for volunteers to learn more about getting involved in the movement to term limit Congress? Sign up to volunteer at termlimits.com/volunteer to be part of our winning team. Last week, Nancy Epstein of Ohio participated in the call. She let us know that she wrote an editorial for her local newspaper. Nancy joins us today to share it with us.
Nancy Epstein: Need for new blood demands, term limits. I only wish our founding fathers had thought about term limits for the Senate and House. The current salary 2019 for rank and file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year. Leaders of the House and Senate are paid a higher salary. Senate leadership for the majority party is 193,400 and the same for the minority party leader. Speaker of the House receives 223,500. The majority and minority leaders receive 193,400. Health insurance is another benefit that members of the House and Senate receive. Members of Congress have been required to purchase health insurance plans offered through one of the affordable care act approved exchanges in order to receive a government contribution toward their health coverage. On the average, the government pays from 72% to 75% of the premiums.
Nancy Epstein: Now you are probably wondering why I looked into these items. It is due to the fact that I believe in term limits, but obviously those that are in the House and Senate do not. Why would they want to lose their benefits? Now I ask you did the workers at GM in Moorestown and the [inaudible 00:14:37] want to lose their benefits? We in non-governmental jobs do not have the luxury to keep our jobs and the benefit if the business closes or forced to lay people off. New blood is not a bad idea. Often those who are in office forget that they represent the people in their districts and not themselves. They also know how to manipulate the system. We are in crisis with our government. We are divided and as Abraham Lincoln stated, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is kind for us to elect new blood as we need to set term limits. Nancy Epstein, Boardman, Ohio.
Philip Blumel: We had some other interesting news this last week internationally on the issue of term limits of great consequence that Benny Gantz is won the position of Prime Minister in Israel over Benjamin Netanyahu who was the longest tenured Prime Minister in the short history of that country. And interestingly, Benny Gantz part of the positions held by his Blue and White Alliance is to limit terms of the Prime Minister.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, and obviously Netanyahu is in the cross hairs here. He’s a popular figure in American politics. He campaigned on term limits in the 90s when he served I think one term as Prime Minister and he’s now been in for 13 years. Cumulatively. Think about it this way though, 8 million people live in Israel. Over 1 million of them just voted for Netanyahu, which means they’re sympathetic to his policies. Is not a single one of those people who live in what’s pretty much a well-educated democracy capable of leading Israel? Is there not a single one who’s as qualified as Netanyahu? He’s the only person qualified to be a Prime Minister? I’m not even speaking to the qualifications of Gantz. I don’t know the guy from Adam, but just the idea of term limits in general and there always being a need for renewal, whether in business, government or nonprofit world. Sometimes it’s just time for a change and I think people of Israel see that. Pardon my skepticism though about once Gantz is in there, is he going to keep his promise on term limits or is he going to become Netanyahu part two, right?
Philip Blumel: Now his background, Benny Gantz’s background is not political. This is his first political position. He came out of the military and he was seen as sort of a military hero, a soft spoken character, very much different personality wise than Benjamin Netanyahu. But interestingly, the issue may not be so easy to sweep under the rug because it’s been bubbling up over the years as the tenure of Netanyahu has grown longer and longer. And in fact there was actually a vote and the Knesset in 2018 whether or not to impose term limits on the Prime Minister and it was 44 to 37 vote.
Philip Blumel: Netanyahu didn’t participate in it himself because he happened to be out of the country at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but the vote was held and the sponsors of the bill to put eight year term limits, that’s two, four year terms, very much like the US President onto the Prime Minister. They argued that having too much power for too long leads to political corruption. And of course we all know that Benjamin Netanyahu is under investigation, has been since 2016 for multiple counts of corruption, starting with the fact that he and his family had been accepting a large number of gifts from big names and people in business and politics throughout the state of Israel. So it may not be so easy to sweep under the rug. And it’s part of the reason why Benny Gantz has so much support right now and why he won the election last week.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, and it doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t quite get through the Parliament. They have a different system than the one we do here being a Parliament. It means that the party with the most seats within the legislature gets to form the Presidency or the Prime Minister ship. And so Netanyahu is not just the executive head of Israel or was just not the executive head. He’s also the head of the legislature.
Philip Blumel: That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides: It would be like if the Speaker of the House were also the President of the United States, works differently from how we have it here in America. So he is kind of uniquely positioned to quell those types of ideas, but we’ll see if Gantz pushes it forward as soon as he gets in there.
Philip Blumel: Right. It’s of interest to us that the President of Israel, which is a unique position from the Prime Minister, although the President’s largely ceremonial but the President is term limited, the President is limited to one seven year term. Interesting.
Nick Tomboulides: Interesting. Yeah. Going back to Illinois, there was only one term limit in the state of Illinois and that applies to the President of the Senate. You may not be President of the Senate in Illinois for more than 10 years, but apparently you could be Speaker of the House, the other chamber for 36.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. US term limits has a congressional term limits strategy and it is working. In the recent Mississippi special elections, voters chose signatories of the US term limits pledge 10 times out of 10 against opponents, including four incumbents who refuse to commit to co-sponsor and vote for the term limits legislation next session. This result was possible because US term limits activists asked for the signatures and US term limits used its resources, including radio mailers and digital media to inform voters who signed and who didn’t. Our next stop is Louisiana, which is having state legislative elections next month. Can you please help us educate Louisiana voters by making a financial contribution at termlimits.com? It is these state legislators who have the constitutional power to call for an amendment writing convention limited to the subject of congressional term limits. Congress won’t fix themselves. It’s up to the states and to the people and that means you and me, termlimits.com. Thank you. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: The revolution isn’t being televised. Fortunately, you have the No Uncertain Terms Podcast.
Speaker 8: I feel it coming. Corruption.