Philip Blumel:
Happy birthday, Nancy Pelosi. Nancy turned eighty years old last week. She’s joined the ranks of 20 members in the House and Senate who will also be in the octogenarian caucus this session. She’s been in office for 17 terms. Nancy, we wish you many more, many more years that is, not terms. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of March 30th, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
The world’s reaction to the latest Coronavirus has upset all our lives in one way or another, including the US term limits and the U S Congress. In the States, the legislatures are staying home and in Washington, the insider traders and special interests lobbyists had been working overtime. For an update here’s USTL executive director, Nick Tomboulides.
Coronavirus
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, this is a little bit of a special or maybe nontraditional, unorthodox episode. As you know, everyone is affected somehow by the global health crisis at the moment. I know many of you are working from home or you might be quarantined. You’re practicing social distancing and you’re constantly washing your hands. I hope all of you out there are staying safe and I wanted to put in a special note for Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul is a friend of US Term Limits. He’s a supporter of our efforts and he has unfortunately been diagnosed with Coronavirus and is at home recovering, so we wish him a speedy and full recovery. Get well soon Senator Paul because the term limits movement could certainly use you at a moment like this. Another thing that has been affecting what we do is a State Capitol shutdown. 20 States shut down for the moment, which means you can’t pass anything.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s an impediment to getting legislation done. Also States are delaying elections. I think at least 10 have delayed either their presidential primary, their legislative primary or both. Other States are expediting absentee ballots or adding more ways you can vote from home. You’re seeing a lot of unprecedented changes right now, but this is really unlike anything we’ve ever seen. At least the response to it, society is changing and we’re going to have to adjust to this new normal for a while. So I am here in my anti-Coronavirus bunker. I am petting Fritz the cat right now, and I wanted to talk about a few stories in the term limits community that are in the news this week.
Insider Trading
One is about congressional insider trading. This came up maybe about 10 years ago. There was this guy named Peter Schweitzer, he’s a great researcher, he’s done so many books.
Nick Tomboulides:
He’s written a book about congressional extortion, he’s written a book about how congressmen right before a big bill is about to pass, will call the special interests who are either for or against the bill and they’ll shake them down for campaign donations. He’s done a book about the princelings about the sons and cousins and brothers of members of Congress who get these plum lobbying gigs because they have a relationship with somebody within the legislature. And so they’re trading off that knowledge and that connection. And then he’s also done a book on insider trading in Congress. Great book, it’s called Throw Them All Out. And I think it came out in 2011, this book was about how members of Congress were using nonpublic information that they were getting from their position in Congress, basically to obtain financial gain. They were using it to trade stocks for their own personal benefit.
Nick Tomboulides:
And at the time a lot of research was done, which showed that members of Congress unsurprisingly were actually outperforming some of the best banks, some of the best hedge funds on Wall Street in terms of their portfolios. They were earning a higher rate of return than the biggest experts in the business. And so the question then became are members of Congress financial gurus? Or are they insider trading? And I don’t think you need a Master’s degree in finance to see what the answer is there. Members of Congress were insider trading. And what surprised a lot of people was insider trading up until 2011, 2012 for members of Congress, it was not illegal. It was illegal for everyone else. If you’re Martha Stewart, you can’t do it. I think Martha Stewart got five months in the pokey for insider trading, but before 2012 if you were a member of Congress, it was perfectly legal and members of Congress are getting all sorts of briefings all the time that affect the global economy.
Nick Tomboulides:
They’re getting briefings on pharmaceutical drug approvals and mergers and acquisitions and health crises and all this type of information that you can use to know exactly what a stock is going to do. And so the members of Congress were making hay out of that. The revelation of that information prompted Congress to pass the Stock Act, which was a prohibition on insider trading. It said members of Congress couldn’t do it anymore. Now some elements of that bill were quietly repealed. A lot of the disclosure stuff was later repealed, but I think the basic structure of that bill that ban on Congress members insider trading is still in place. And at the time that bill was passed 96 to three by the US Senate, one of the senators voting against it was a guy named Richard Burr from the state of North Carolina. And the reason Richard Burr is a significant to this discussion is because he was just busted for insider trading.
Nick Tomboulides:
There is now a legal complaint against Senator Burr and it basically boils down to this it alleges that Senator Burr used information about the Coronavirus to dump his stock before the market started to take a dive. It alleges that on February 13th as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Berg got a special briefing, special classified briefing on the severity of the Coronavirus, how serious it would be, how easy it was to transmit, and how devastating some of the effects would be for a large number of people. So, he knew the market was going to tank. What does he do? Does he warn the American people? Does he warn his constituents? Of course not. He dumps $1.7 million in stocks. He did give a private briefing a couple of weeks later to some big donors and some insiders letting them know the severity of the virus. Hint, hint.
Nick Tomboulides:
But then in his public appearances, he’s downplaying the threat so he knew exactly what was going to happen. And one of the main complaints focuses on his sale of $150,000 worth of stock in Wyndham, the international hotel chain. That company has really taken a beating from the Coronavirus pandemic along with airlines and cruise ships and basically anything relating to travel and lodging and accommodation has really taken a beating. And since Burr sold those shares of Wyndham, the stock has plunged more than 50% it just finished, I think at around $25 as this virus is depressing demand for travel. Now, we often hear that there are two sets of rules, one for the privileged class, the elected elite and another for the average American. This seems to be a classic case of that. This is a burgeoning scandal, it is arrogance from a member of Congress, Richard Burr, who is apparently convinced that he is above the law and nobody is above the law, Mr. Burr, nobody is.
Nick Tomboulides:
And as a member of Congress, as a member of the Senate, you should have known better. You know that you’re elected not to play political games, not to enrich yourself, but to serve the people of North Carolina, which is what you represent. And I think at this point it would be fair to call for a resignation. Now there are some other senators involved in this as well. Senator Dianne Feinstein from California, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia has also been accused, but in Senator Burr’s case I think there is no excuse. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that he was saving himself. He knew that he was trading on this insider information and he does need to be held accountable. Richard Burr has been in Congress for the last 25 years. He was a five term member of the US House and he is currently serving his fourth term as a member of the US Senate.
USTL Pledge Update
Scott Tillman:
Hi, this is Scott Tillman, the national field director with US Term Limits. We ask candidates for state legislature to sign a pledge that will help us get term limits on Congress. The pledge reads, “I pledge that as a member of the state legislature, I will co-sponsor, vote for and defend the resolution applying for an article five convention for the sole purpose of enacting term limits on Congress.” There are many state legislative elections coming in 2020, last week we had 29 new candidates for state legislature sign this pledge. Candidates are getting real traction with the term limits issue. If you have access to a candidate, please ask them to sign our pledge. Pledges are available at termlimits.com.
Stimulus Bill
Philip Blumel:
While workers across America are being laid off in record numbers. One profession has found this crisis to be very lucrative, lobbyists. With the passage of a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill last week, lobbyists had their work cut out for them and they made a killing. We’re just now finding out all the things in this stimulus bill that were tacked on by special interests and their cronies in Congress because there’s a chance to spend money on just about everything under the sun and they weren’t going to let this crisis go to waste. Many projects that are being pushed for years that have nothing to do with the Coronavirus were just added on. The Wall Street Journal was reporting on this during the battle over the stimulus package. And they talked to lobbyists for restaurants that were pressing Congress to include new caps on transaction fees. The USC food industry was asking for a special relaxation of immigration laws to ensure they have the workers they need in their Alaskan salmon processing plants.
Philip Blumel:
Many things that maybe deserve some consideration on their own, but they just got thrown in. Everybody was saying yes to everything, and that’s why the size of the bill kept expanding through the process. When everything is shut down, everyone needs help, but everyone can’t get help. So who gets the help? The ones with the best lobbyists, the best connections in Washington. And that’s why we see that this final bill, for instance, the National Endowment for the Humanities got 75 million bucks. The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences got an extra 50 million bucks. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts famously got about 25 million bucks. PBS stations got about 75 million bucks. $93 million was appropriated to Congress itself. 350 million for a refugee resettlement. 10 billion or so for international development, everything but the kitchen sink. Oh wait, the kitchen sink too. Now that the stimulus bill is passed, everyone can read it because no one has read it prior.
Philip Blumel:
You can be sure that not one member of the US Congress has read this entire document. We’ll be able to find out what’s in it and there will certainly be a lot more finger-pointing. Justifiably so. Is it too much to ask that in a time of national crisis, members of the US Congress could put on their hats as citizens and behave responsibly with the public purse? Yes, it is too much to ask. Those hats have been gathering dust in their closets for decades. It’s the way the system works.
Sen. Tom Coburn
Philip Blumel:
In a sad note, we lost a term limits hero last week. Former Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma passed away age 72 of prostate cancer. Coburn was a medical doctor who ran for Congress. He supported term limits and limited himself to three terms in the House before stepping down in fulfillment of that pledge. He ran years later, disgusted about the Bush administration’s spending binge. He ran for Senate and won and served two terms and stepped down actually early, partially because of health but also because he had pledged only to serve two terms in that body.
Philip Blumel:
He was a term limit supporter through and through. He signed the US Term Limits pledge and also had sponsored the term limits amendments in the House and while he was in the Senate and indeed was their chief sponsor. In his last years, he worked hard in trying to convince the States to use their power under article five of the US constitution to call an amendment writing convention to impose term limits on the US Congress as well as a balanced budget and other measures. Dr. Coburn was a true citizen legislator and he will be missed.
Fishkill Tightens Term Limits
Philip Blumel:
Oh, here’s some good news. The town of Fishkill, which is a small town in New York, just about an hour or so North of New York City. The town of Fishkill supervisor and town board positions will be subject to a limit of two, four year terms according to the town. The board approved the term limits during a meeting Wednesday according to a town release which noted that term limits included consecutive and non-consecutive terms for different positions. Look at that and this town board passed these term limits on themselves. We could have used some politicians like these during the stimulus bill debate last week in the US Congress. Congratulations Fishkill, New York.
Term Limits Petition
Stacey Selleck:
Hi, this is Stacey. We keep asking you to sign the petition at termlimits.com but what does it really say? We know the system’s broken and needs repair. US Term Limits is fighting to call for a convention under article five of the constitution to propose an amendment for term limits on the US House and Senate. If we don’t act right now, we may never be able to bring back government of by and for the people. Congress has about a 17% approval rating, but a 95% reelection rate. That’s because our elected leaders can abuse their power to keep away electoral challenges, which transfers power away from citizens and into the hands of unaccountable career politicians. Please sign our petition at termlimits.com/petition.
Congress Doesn’t Read the Bills
Philip Blumel:
Here’s an interesting story out of Capitol Hill, one of the first Coronavirus relief bills, HR-62-01 it’s called the Family’s First Coronavirus Response Act. Gosh, that is sounds like typical Washingtonian language, the families, puppies and cookies act, it might as well have called it because obviously the title never explains what the hell is actually in this thing. But what we’re highlighting on this one was this bill was presented to the US House of Representatives on March 14th is 110 page, multibillion dollar Coronavirus spending bill. In fact, the bill was produced so quickly that the congressional budget office couldn’t even score it. They couldn’t even tell members of Congress how much this bill was going to spend on Coronavirus and how it was going to be spent. But because it said Coronavirus and because we care about Coronavirus, it had to be passed immediately. So members of Congress had to vote for this thing 30 minutes after they were shown the bill for the first time.
Philip Blumel:
They only had 30 minutes to read 110 pages. So one of two things is true, either every member of Congress is a world champion speed reader who can take down a page every 16 seconds or, and I think this one is a lot more likely, they just voted for something they didn’t even read. Oh my gosh. And it passed 363 to 40. No matter what you think of what’s going on right now and no matter what you think about how the federal government should respond to Coronavirus, one thing that we should all agree on is that members of Congress need to read the bills before they vote.
Philip Blumel:
Remember what the argument against term limits is? And of course, no normal people make this argument against term limits, but the Capitol folks make this argument. The chattering class makes this argument, “Well term limits are going to deprive us of all of our experienced and wonderful politicians.” They’re defending experienced and wonderful politicians who don’t even read these bills because they don’t care enough about the American people to put in the work. I tell ya, we need term limits now more than ever before because this situation is just getting worse and an issue like Coronavirus is too important to be entrusted with cynical career politicians who are self-serving and who are only looking out for themselves.
Philip Blumel:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. It is a tragedy for our nation that professional politicians who do not face significant electoral competition and are so distant, so divorced from the concerns and needs of working Americans that they are at the helm during this current crisis. It’s enough to make you sick. America needs term limits on its Congress. You’ve signed already. I know, but let’s get our friends and family to sign the online petition for congressional term limits. Go to termlimits.com/petition copy that webpage address and send it to everyone you know with a note urging them to sign. We’ll be back next week.
Philip Blumel:
Thank you.
Stacey Selleck:
The revolution isn’t being televised. Fortunately you have the No Uncertain Terms podcast.
Philip Blumel:
USTL