Philip Blumel:
Is that the Calvary coming? I hope so.
Philip Blumel:
Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of April 27th, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
The legislatures are shut down, but Congress has been working overtime, passing big ticket bills to tide us over as American workers are not permitted to work. But of course that’s not all these bills are doing. All kinds of spending measures for favorite special interests are being tacked onto these emergency bills. In a time of crisis, Congress members continue to put their own personal interest above, or at least crudely stapled onto, the needs of the country. The United States needs term limits now more than ever, and the States are being furloughed. Is there any hope coming over the horizon? Maybe. Let’s talk to US Term Limits executive director, Nick Tomboulides who has been watching the congressional races across the country where term limits is a factor. Hey Nick. So we’re going to talk a little politics today, Nick, and before we get into the weeds, I want to look at this big picture. Is that faint rumbling I’m hearing off in the distance the calvary coming to save us?
Nick Tomboulides:
You might’ve left your toaster oven on. I don’t know what that is. I think it could be the cavalry coming to save us. We talk about the two different strategies to get term limits on Congress. The big one, of course being … By the way, I’m so sorry if I sound a little weird today. I just had a root canal. My mouth is very swollen, half of my mouth, I can’t even feel it. So I’m slurring my words a little bit. I apologize, but that won’t stop me from getting this podcast. My mouth has basically swelled to the size of our national debt. So please pardon me if I stumble. But yes, the cavalry is coming. There are two strategies to get term limits on Congress. First being the article five convention. State legislatures taking action, need two thirds of those to pass a bill saying we want congressional term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:
And then we were off to the races in that respect. But because we’ve got so many state legislatures furloughed right now, not in action, we’re looking more at the congressional angle. We’re looking at what can we do to be effective during this downtime? And part of that is getting pledges from members of Congress, not just any members, but folks who are in very pivotal races.
Nick Tomboulides:
Because right now, Republicans, they control the Senate 53/45. So the Senate races are going to determine who controls Congress, which is very important, because if Democrats are in control, Congress is going to tax the crap out of you, waste your money and sell out to special interests. And if Republicans are in control, they’re going to do the same thing. So for term limits activists, you’ve got to put your own party loyalty aside at times. Focus on getting candidates to sign this pledge. And that’s what our team has been doing. We have been talking to Republican candidates, Democrat candidates, and everyone in between to try and get as many pledge signers as possible. Because look, this is American politics. We never know who’s going to win a particular race. So we’ve got our hedge our bets and get as many folks signed up as we can.
Philip Blumel:
Right. And you know the importance of course of the pledge is that someone that is elected to Congress after having signed the pledge, have committed themselves to co-sponsoring and voting for the US Term Limits Amendment. And we know the pledge process works because when folks are elected, they basically do as they pledged to do. And right now we have 15 members of the Senate who have co-sponsored the US Term Limits Amendment bill in the Senate, and 51 in the US House of Representatives that have done so. And most of those are of course pledge signers or they never would have actually gone through and co-sponsored the bill. So it’s a very powerful process. We’ve seen it over and over and this is how we’re amassing this larger mass of support within the congress itself.
Nick Tomboulides:
And keep in mind too, having just 15 pledge signers in the Senate was enough to catalyze a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on term limits. Let’s say we get five more of this cycle. Do we then get a hearing in front of the full committee? Do we then get a vote? I mean with each successive pledge signer that we get, we’re building closer and closer to the critical mass that we need to get this done. We’re getting closer and closer to a tipping point. So every single pledge matters.
Nick Tomboulides:
Without those 15 we had, there would’ve been no discussion of this in Congress. We forced their hand. We got the most significant moment in the modern history of term limits to happen because of all this work at the grassroots level, because of what we’re doing working with members of Congress. We’re not putting our eggs in the basket of Congress passing a term limits amendment. If you hold your breath waiting for that, you’re going to die. But the synergy of the two strategies, Congress and the state legislatures working together, that is going to produce something. And that is why this is so important.
Philip Blumel:
Right. So let’s talk about some specific races where term limits are playing a role. One that I find particularly interesting is in Maine, the US Senate race there because Susan Collins, she actually signed a pledge to self-limit as well as to support the Term Limits Amendment and she has broken both of those pledges and let’s hear about that.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, well sometimes I tell people, I have Susan Collins’ signed broken pledge in my office. I actually do. I do have it. I have the original with her hand signed ink on it and I keep it in a little folder called Hall of Shame because she has so shamelessly violated her pledge over the years. In 1996, she said she would only serve two terms in the Senate. She won that race. She won a second term, she won a third term. She won a fourth term. Now she’s running for a fifth term, but as you noted, we no longer ask members of Congress to self limit. We don’t care so much about that because we think if you self-limit, it’s going to drain the swamp of the good guys. We ask people to support constitutional limits, which she did promise to do in 1996 and now she won’t even follow through on that.
Nick Tomboulides:
So not only is Susan Collins protective of her own career, but she’s not even lifting a finger to help us get term limits on the entire Congress. And so that is what really troubles me. Fortunately, there are some opponents of hers, they are Democrats who signed the pledge. She’s got three opponents and of those three two have signed the pledge, one is named Bre Kidman, the other is named Betsy Sweet. They’re more progressive leaning Democrats. And I’m hoping that … We’re not saying we have a dog in this hunt, we don’t root for particular candidates to win races, but hopefully that elevates term limits to a level of certain debate and discussion in this issue and puts some pressure on Susan Collins to do the right thing.
Philip Blumel:
Good. Cause if either of these two candidates wins the democratic primary, then they’ll be facing Susan Collins in the general in November.
Nick Tomboulides:
Correct. Yes. And you have to hedge your bets. We collect a huge number of term limits pledges because we never really know what’s going to happen. We talk to Democrats, talk to Republicans. In the event that Susan Collins loses or it’s one of these other incumbents even who supports term limits loses, we don’t want the seat going to a term limits opponent. We want to try to cast as wide a net as possible. And what you see here overall is very promising. What it means is that based on the work of US term limits past, present, future, the overall number of term limits supporters in Congress will be going up in 2021. We’re on a constant, steady upward climb or an upward trajectory, which is what you like to see because when the States come knocking at the door, we got to be prepared.
Speaker 4:
This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel:
One of the more questionable icons of this year’s quarantine is Joe Exotic, a former owner of an exotic animal park, a convicted felon, and a star of the runaway Netflix hit show Tiger King. One of our listeners, with apparently a lot of time on his hands pointed out this short clip from one of Joe Exotic’s YouTube rants.
Joe Exotic:
Let me give you a little education, mister. First of all, you people up there and Washington and the White House in the Senate and the Congress and everything else, you need to work four years and then you need to get out and get a real job so you know what’s going on in the business world in America.
Philip Blumel:
Over in Montana, in their at-large US house seat, Greg Gianforte is running for governor. So this is going to be an open seat, and as we always talk about on this podcast, that’s when you actually have real elections. When both parties put up somebody or even if it’s a one party district or state, you have a competition in the primary. And so there is an opportunity for someone to sneak in to the Congress here. So in a couple of the people running for this seat, I understand, are term limits pledge signers.
Nick Tomboulides:
Look what happens when you get the open seat. You get a bunch of serious candidates who run, you get a bunch of non-serious candidates. I mean you get your state senators and your state reps and then you get your Tijuana taxi drivers and just random people who run for these seats. It’s democracy in action. But we are excited about this because one of the more prominent candidates, a guy named Matt Rosendale, I believe he is the secretary of state or state treasurer in Montana.
Philip Blumel:
State auditor.
Nick Tomboulides:
State auditor, sorry. He came very close to winning a Senate seat a couple of years ago. Now he’s going for the at-large house race in Montana. Montana’s small population. One member represents the entire state in the US house. And Rosendale is gunning for that. He is very, very gung ho for term limits. Another candidate in that race. Debra Lam has also signed, I would say they are among the front runners, among the people who are most likely to capture that seat. So we will be keeping that seat in term limits hands.
Philip Blumel:
Fantastic.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s like you have to play defense as well as offense. You need to retain the seats that already have term limits supporters in them because if a member of Congress supports term limits, that person is more likely to want to go on and do other things. I mean some term limits supporters do stay in Congress for a very long time but it’s not that likely. They like to move on to greener pastures. They have more of a private sector sensibility in most cases. And Greg Gianforte, who comes from the business world, is no exception to that. So he is moving on to do something else. That seat is coming open and we need to protect it. We need to keep it in term limits hands. And so we’re working with the candidates and we think we’ve got the most prominent candidate locked down.
Philip Blumel:
Good. A really interesting race because it’s so tight is the Alabama US Senate because here we have a runoff coming up between pledge signer and football coach Tommy Tuberville, Auburn Tigers and he’s running against Jeff Sessions who used to be as a Senator from Alabama and who spent a stint as the Attorney General of United States. Tommy Tuberville edged out Jeff Sessions slightly so this is really fascinating.
Nick Tomboulides:
Well Jeff Sessions has burned a lot of bridges because he is not on good terms with the president, actually. Kind of a fascinating situation where Sessions was the Attorney General, handpicked Attorney General for Trump. I think he was the first Senator who endorsed Trump and but Trump was so disappointed with him that now I think Trump has come out for Tuberville. Tuberville is the pledge signer. The incumbent is a Democrat. Doug Jones, he snuck in when Roy Moore, the former Chief Judge got caught in a scandal a couple of years ago and so the Democrat, there’s an anti-term limits Democrat occupying the Senate seat in Alabama right now. And it’s likely that a pro-term limits Republican will capture the seat in November. So that will be a pickup for term limits in the Senate. That will bring us to at least 16 signers in the Senate and then we’ve got a lot more races where we have a chance of improving that number.
Philip Blumel:
Right. Well one place where there’s a threat to a pledge signer is in Arizona and that US Senate race, because Martha McSally who has also only been in their office a short time because she was appointed after the resignation of Senator John Kyle. She’s facing a stiff challenge from a term limits opponent
Nick Tomboulides:
I would say for term limits activists, we’ve got a lot of term limits activists in Arizona. Shout out to Jim Olivi. He is our state director out there. He is the man. I don’t know if anyone works harder in Arizona than Jim. But for term limits activists, you’ve got to put your own party loyalty aside at times. Put your ideology at times and focus on getting candidates to sign the pledge.
Nick Tomboulides:
If you live in Arizona and you’re a Republican or you’re a conservative, that means you probably want McSally to win the race. But strategically though, does that mean we should rely solely on McSally’s term limits pledge and ignore her opponent who’s an astronaut? Mark Kelly, guy with a very impressive background. No, because that guy could win. So we need people in Arizona to reach, reach out to Mark Kelly, cover our bases so that no matter what happens in this race, at minimum, this race will stay in term limits hands and we will keep that number in the Senate. So yeah, it, McSally is good, but her hold on this seat is very tenuous, so we need her opponent to sign as well.
Philip Blumel:
Has Mark Kelly, the astronaut, come out opposed to tournaments or has he been silent on the issue?
Nick Tomboulides:
I think he’s been living at the corner of silence and apathy right now. He’s sort of been dodging/not caring about the issue. If you live in Arizona, all you have to do, you go to TermLimits.com, you can print off a copy of the term limits pledge and you can send it to Mark Kelly, send it to the Senator’s office or send it to the campaign office with a note saying, “I’m a constituent. I want to know where you stand on term limits and whether you’d be willing to sign that pledge.” I run US Term Limits, but I live in Florida so it’s not nearly as powerful for me to reach out to a guy like that as it is for someone who lives in Arizona to do it.
Philip Blumel:
All right, well let’s stop beating around the bush here and let’s talk about Kentucky. This is a race that everyone in the country is looking at, not just people in Kentucky of course, because Senate President Mitch McConnell is facing a serious challenge in the general election from the pledge signer Democrat, Amy McGrath, and it is a big, big money race.
Nick Tomboulides:
Do you remember what Mitch McConnell said in I think it was January of 2017 about term limits?
Philip Blumel:
Yeah. Remind me.
Nick Tomboulides:
Well, this is right after Donald Trump had come out for it during the campaign and Mitch McConnell said, I can’t really do his voice, but he’s like, “Under no circumstances will the Senate be voting on term limits.”
Philip Blumel:
That’s right. Well listen, I’ll top that. Remember what he said back in 1994 during the heyday of the Contract With America that the Republicans just retook the house after wandering in the wilderness for decades, and one of the main issues that brought them there was trumpeting the idea of term limits. And when the bills were being argued in the House and the Senate, Senator McConnell came out and very forcefully said, “I am not only against the idea of congressional term limits, but I am going to tack on this term limits bill an amendment that would repeal the 22nd amendment, which is presidential term limits.” That’s how much of an opponent he is of term limits, going all the way back then.
Nick Tomboulides:
Wow.
Philip Blumel:
So he is … In fact, let’s roll that clip right now,
Mitch McConnell:
And in discussing this as we did in 1947 with regard to the 22nd amendment, I’m also going to drop in a repeal of the 22nd amendment. President Reagan was not in favor of the 22nd amendment. He was also, by the way, not in favor of congressional term limits. As for me, I’m with Reagan and I intend to introduce a constitutional amendment which would repeal the 22nd amendment, because that too denied voters the opportunity to choose their president.
Philip Blumel:
And I don’t want to let that go without challenge because he mentioned Ronald Reagan there. And a Ronald Reagan would probably disagree with that description of himself. Let’s hear that.
Ronald Reagan:
As the governor, and I believe I can say with confidence, with virtually the full support of this team, I will seek whatever legislation is necessary to hence forth limit any and all governors of California constitutionally to no more than two terms in office. Now, since this seems too short, a time for a man who likes to refer to himself as not only a good governor, but a great governor, I think he should remember that two terms by constitutional amendment is long enough for any president of the United States. If a man can’t do the job in eight years, what makes us think he can do it in 12?
Philip Blumel:
okay, but what about Amy McGrath? Who is she and wow, why is she making such headway against the president of the Senate?
Nick Tomboulides:
Amy McGrath is a former, I want to say Marine fighter pilot. She was in the Marine Corps for 20 years, flew a ton of combat missions. She helped fight the Al Qaeda, helped fight the Taliban. She’s probably half McConnell’s age or close to it. But I think the real reason she’s on the radar is she’s raised $30 million. She’s raised more money than McConnell, and in politics, money talks and BS walks.
Nick Tomboulides:
You have to say that even though it’s Kentucky, it’s a serious threat to McConnell for several reasons. I would say first because she’s got more money. Second, because McConnell refuses to support term limits and people are hot on this issue right now and they want to see action on it. And third, because Kentucky just elected a democratic governor in 2019 so it’s no longer a state that you can take for granted if you’re a Republican. I would say this race is a toss up or at least close to it.
Philip Blumel:
That’s really amazing. And didn’t that democratic governor who just got elected support term limits?
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, Andy Beshear. Nowadays everything every governor does is coronavirus related, but back in the era of normalcy for politicians, Andy Beshear was for term limits, called for it on the Kentucky legislature, and I think he also said we need to do it for Congress. And that was one of the issues I think that put him over the top because he won in a very close campaign.
Nick Tomboulides:
Democrats are starting to learn that the more you focus on these bi-partisan populist issues, or popular issues, not really populist, but popular government reform issues, anti-corruption issues, the better you’re going to do at the ballot box. It’s not all about just throwing red meat to your base. It’s about building these bridges across party lines. And by supporting term limits, McGrath is doing that. The question is, will McConnell ever wake up and listen to what the people want? And I don’t think he ever will on term limits. I think he’s got too much pride and he’s not willing to swallow it.
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:
Follow us on most social media @USTermLimits.
Speaker 8:
USTL.