Philip Blumel:
None dare call it revenge. After trying to force an on the record congressional vote on the massive pork-laden stimulus bill, representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky is getting blowback. One charge is that representative Massie isn’t living up to his term limits pledge, but is that true? Hi. My name is Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of April, 13, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
US Term Limits executive director, Nick Tomboulides is here with the full story and others. Hey, Nick. All right, let me set the table with this one. Thomas Massie, as many know, is the representative from Kentucky who forced a physical vote of the US Congress on that 2.2 trillion dollar stimulus bill. He made the argument that under article one of the Constitution, a majority of each of the congressional chambers shall constitute a quorum to do business.
Philip Blumel:
That has traditionally has always meant a physical quorum. He was not going to allow everyone to stay home and just have this consensus vote without recording individual votes. Forcing the issue, sure enough, everybody came to Washington, had the debate, and they shunned his demand to have a recorded vote. They had the consensus vote anyways, and so in a way they made his gesture futile.
Philip Blumel:
They didn’t stop there. I have read so much nasty stuff about Thomas Massie since he did this. I think the president tweeted about him negatively and people from both parties have been jumping all over him. What’s most relevant to our discussion here, is that one of the attacks on him is that apparently he did not live up to a term limits pledge. Nick, what’s that all about?
Nick Tomboulides:
First of all, I think you’re seeing these attacks because dogs don’t chase the parked cars.
Philip Blumel:
That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides:
When you’re catching flak like this, you must be over the target. You must be doing something right. I thought the argument that was made at the very start of that was so laughable that, you’re actually going to kill members of Congress by forcing them to take a recorded vote to sink our country two trillion dollars further in debt. It’s just ridiculous. Nothing in my life has so validated my decision to spend my life smiting politicians as that.
Philip Blumel:
No kidding.
Nick Tomboulides:
But, no. The attacks you’re seeing on Massie are totally off base. There’s this guy running for Congress from Kentucky. He is misrepresenting US Term Limits. He’s misrepresenting everything we stand for. His name is Todd McMurtry. He is posting pictures of our pledge, claiming that Congressman Massie has violated it. The problem is, that’s 100% fake news.
Philip Blumel:
Well that’s fake news. Well that’s fake news. Well that’s fake.
Nick Tomboulides:
Massie has honored our pledge, which asks him to co-sponsor a term limits amendment since day one. This McMurtry fellow has never even signed it. Massie has signed it and he has kept it.
Philip Blumel:
He’s co-sponsored the US term limits amendment bill?
Nick Tomboulides:
Correct.
Philip Blumel:
Oh, geez.
Nick Tomboulides:
Reliably, faithfully since he got to Congress. I’ve never spoken to this McMurtry guy. If someone out there listening talks to him, let him know, we’ve already got too many people in Congress who distort the truth to advance their agenda. We really don’t need one more.
Philip Blumel:
No kidding. What’s his claim? On what basis could he say that Massie is not living up to his pledge?
Nick Tomboulides:
Our pledge is one page. It’s 31 words. The pledge states, “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.” Relatively simple. We are asking candidates and incumbents to sponsor a resolution for constitutional term limits. What that means is, term limits that apply to every member of Congress. An amendment to the constitution.
Nick Tomboulides:
Under article five of the constitution, you need a two-thirds vote in Congress to get that facilitated. Then it will get tossed over to the states who get to make the final decision. To clarify, what our pledge says is, “Please sponsor a bill for term limits.” It does not say, “Please resign personally after X number of years.” That’s the mistake that McMurtry is making. He is alleging that our pledge, that Massie’s pledge is a self limitation. That Massie has made a personal promise to resign, and in fact he has never made that promise. At best, it is sloppy. At worst, it is disingenuous to go down this road if you’re McMurtry.
Philip Blumel:
Sure. McMurtry here is particularly disingenuous in the fact that, here he is attacking Thomas Massie for not being a stalwart on term limits, when he himself has not even signed the pledge. I would assume, as we know from getting politicians to sign this pledge, that if he doesn’t sign it once he gets elected, he’s not going to be helped.
Nick Tomboulides:
No, never.
Philip Blumel:
This is outrageous. All right. This guy’s jumping on a popular issue, trying to ride it into the Congress, and he’s a fake.
Nick Tomboulides:
By the way, like I said, our pledge is one page. It’s 31 words. If McMurtry can’t even get that right, how’s he going to deal with thousand-page bills when he gets to Congress?
Philip Blumel:
He doesn’t have to actually have to read it, right? With the stimulus bill, nobody read it and then they actually had a vote on it where nobody actually voted.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yes.
Philip Blumel:
Maybe that’s not really that necessary anymore.
Nick Tomboulides:
No, no. I don’t think it’s that important to him. He’s literally running on a platform of, we shouldn’t get members of Congress to take recorded votes. That’s a waste of our time to get members of Congress on the record. No, but this is an important distinction though, between a self limitation. When someone promises they will step down, which is not what we support, and a constitutional term limit, which would affect every member of Congress.
Nick Tomboulides:
When you go around just asking individual members of Congress to step down after a certain number of years, only the good guys are going to do it. You’re only draining the swamp out of the people who are doing the best job, the honest members of Congress. The bad ones are either never going to make that promise or they’re going to make it and they’re going to break it.
Stephanie Sandoval:
Russian president Vladimir Putin has delayed a public vote on constitutional amendments that would allow him to stay in power until 2036. During a televised address to the nation on Wednesday, Putin said the vote, which was originally scheduled for April 22nd, would be pushed back due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Under current law, presidents in Russia can only serve two six-year terms in a row. Putin’s second consecutive term is set to end in 2024. A new measure which Russia’s parliament approved earlier this month would let Putin run for re-election, despite that limit.
Stephanie Sandoval:
Putin said the government will see how the pandemic plays out in Russia before it sets a new date for the vote. He also declared next week will be an official non-work period for people in non-essential sectors. He warned residents to not take chances and to stay home saying, “We must protect ourselves, our families and friends. We must adopt a more disciplined and responsible approach. Do not think that this cannot happen to you. It can happen to anyone.” For Newsy, I’m Stephanie Sandoval.
Nick Tomboulides:
We got to talk about China. We haven’t talked about China in a while.
Philip Blumel:
We need to then. Absolutely. Wisconsin Senate president, Roger Roth. He got an email that purported to be from a Chinese consulate. It was trying to get him to create a resolution pass through the Wisconsin legislature, praising China for its great efforts and its transparency regarding the virus that sprang from that country. He thought it was a joke, but he actually looked into it and found out it was real. He got in contact with the Chinese officials that were trying to reach him and he couldn’t believe it. Anyway, he got incensed.
Nick Tomboulides:
Well, first of all, can I just let-
Philip Blumel:
Yep.
Nick Tomboulides:
Isn’t this such a ballsy and random move by China?
Philip Blumel:
It’s hilarious, actually.
Nick Tomboulides:
They’re like, “We want to cover our hides for this whole Wuhan coronavirus bat thing, so we’re going to send a letter to the president of the Wisconsin Senate and try to turn him into a Chinese asset.” Isn’t that crazy?
Philip Blumel:
It is. It’s very funny. What’s even funnier is that, after Senator Roth inquired about it, the Chinese provided him with some verbiage. Get this. It’s things like this. I’m not going to read the whole thing because it’s long, the sentences don’t have enough punctuation, and it’s just ridiculous. “Whereas China’s action has been critical to the global fight against the epidemic and China has adopted unprecedented and rigorous measures for disease control and prevention,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. “Whereas China has been transparent and quick in sharing key information of the virus with the WHO and the international community, creating a window of opportunity for other countries,” blah, blah, blah.
Philip Blumel:
He’s looking at this and he jotted down a different version. In it, he starts out in a completely different way. He says, “Whereas the state of Wisconsin is currently in a state of emergency due to the rising spread of the coronavirus that originated in the Wuhan province of China, as a number of infected individuals in Wisconsin rose to over 700,” et cetera, et cetera. “Whereas the Chinese people are great people and heirs to one of the greatest civilizations in human history, they are held hostage by a brutal and oppressive regime these past 70 years.” Then it starts talking about all these criticisms of the Chinese government. Where am I going with this? Why are we talking about this on a term limits podcast?
Nick Tomboulides:
Term limits.
Philip Blumel:
One of the grievances against the Chinese government that Senator Roth included, is this one. “Whereas the Communist Party of China led by President Xi Jinping has moved to consolidate power, scrapping term limits to create a de facto life term for the president of China and continually squashing democratic based initiatives in and outside mainland China.”
Nick Tomboulides:
I like this idea about the life term for the president of China. I might want to try that myself, frankly.
Philip Blumel:
Anyway, the resolve is basically saying, “No thanks, China.”
Nick Tomboulides:
By the way, just a little factoid. Do you remember what the vote was in the Chinese People’s Congress when they agreed to lift the term limits for Xi? Obviously, People’s Congress should have sarcastic quotes around it because I don’t think this resembles the people of China at all and what they really want. Do you remember what the vote-
Philip Blumel:
It wasn’t unanimous. It has to be close, right?
Nick Tomboulides:
It was 2,958 to two. I’m guessing those two are in a slab of concrete right now in close proximity to Jimmy Hoffa.
Philip Blumel:
I’ll tell you what. One thing, a serious thing I take from this story is that I like it. That the Senate president of Wisconsin who’s in charge of a legislative body, recognizes the importance of term limits to democracy, and also recognizes that scrapping them is a move towards despotism. That’s worth recognizing. Thank you very much, senator Roth.
Nick Tomboulides:
Hear, hear.
Joe Strummer:
(singing)
Philip Blumel:
On April 22nd Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, was the star of a digital town hall event sponsored by the Leadership Institute for College Students. Haley discussed free speech and other campus related issues and also took questions from students.
Speaker 6:
Go to Harvey in Delray Beach. Harvey, you are live on the line.
Harvey:
Ambassador, I’m glad to be part of this conversation with you. I’d like to hear your thoughts on term limits. I’ve been a fan of it for a number of years, but it just doesn’t seem to ever take off.
Nikki Haley:
Listen, we could spend a day talking about term limits. I have fought for term limits pretty much my entire career. When I became a legislator in the state house years ago, back in 2005, I came in with a group of freshmen that were really, had just been a lot of establishment people. The majority leader lost. I had defeated the longest serving legislator in South Carolina at the time. There was a group of us that really came to make a difference.
Nikki Haley:
We had defeated the old guard, but what I saw over a couple of years was, I saw my very friends that I came in with start to change. I remember going and telling my husband, “If you ever see that happen to me, make sure you tell me because I’m scared I won’t see it myself.” What happens is, when you run for office, you’re as close to the people as it gets because you hear their concerns, you know what their fights are, you know what they’re thinking.
Nikki Haley:
Then when you go to work, you’re not hearing from the people as much. You’re hearing more from the lobbyists. You’re hearing more from the government people. You’re hearing more from the seniors who’ve been there who are saying, “This is not how we do things.” Or, “We’ve already tried that. We can’t do that.” I have long been a fighter for term limits. When I became governor in South Carolina, I really tried to push for term limits in the legislature.
Nikki Haley:
What I told the legislature at the time was, “Let the people decide. All I’m asking is for you to pass the legislation, that we have a vote on the ballot that the people can decide if they want term limits.” They would not do it. It was infuriating to me. As a governor, I think it was right, we had two terms. If you can’t get it done in two four-year terms, you need to move along and let someone else do it.
Nikki Haley:
I think the same thing for Congress. When you go and you look at this stimulus package that was way overblown with a bunch of things in there that aren’t helping real people, or if you look at all the waste of time that has happened over this past year to two years of nothing being done on immigration. Nothing being done on infrastructure. Nothing being done on debt. Nothing being done on so many issues that real Americans care about, it shows you why we need term limits in place.
Nikki Haley:
Any Congress can pass this. Any state house can pass it, and they can allow the people to decide if it’s put on a ballot. The problem is, we have to go through the elected officials to get that to happen. I won’t stop fighting for term limits. Stand for America’s fighting for term limits, and I think it’s something that we have to do. I think it’s hugely important to get new voices, fresh ideas in the pipeline. I think it’s important to change with the times. I think honestly, when people stay there too long, they get tired. They get set in their ways and that’s just not what the American people need.
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. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
The revolution isn’t being televised. Fortunately, you have the No Uncertain Terms podcast.