Philip Blumel:
Good morning America. Hi this is Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement for the week of May 18, 2020.
Speaker 2:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
It’s been a rough night, but America is slowly reopening and with it, it’s legislatures and it’s citizenry clamoring anew for term limits. Indeed, the virus crisis has only provided more evidence and impetus for citizens to get control over their professional politicians. The first sign of light came in Louisiana where the term limits movement saw their first victory last week. US Term Limit’s executive director, Nick Tomboulides has the news. Hey Nick.
Nick Tomboulides:
Hello.
Philip Blumel:
So we’ve had some action in the States, or at least in Louisiana. We have our first victory of the year. I tell you what, I didn’t know what to expect once they started closing down the whole economy, but they closed down the legislatures and all the work we seem to put into the legislatures, all the groundwork for the votes this year seemed to go up in smoke. Now things are opening and well, I don’t know. I’m starting to see some green shoots here. What happened in Louisiana?
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah. Well, I couldn’t agree more with what you just said. I didn’t think anything would happen this year. We got a pleasant surprise this week. I was thinking with this whole public health meltdown we’re having, that would stop state legislatures from meeting. In many cases, that is true. There are a lot of states where the government is totally shut down right now, but that’s not the case everywhere. The Louisiana House of Representatives is back in business. The Louisiana Senate is back in business and that means our congressional term limits resolution is back. It got calendared for a hearing this past Wednesday on the committee for governmental affairs in the state house. Basically they resurrected this thing from the ashes of COVID-19 and they had a debate on it. We participated in this. US Term Limits had representation from our regional director, Ken Clark. He did an amazing job and it passed with unanimous consent.
Philip Blumel:
That’s amazing.
Nick Tomboulides:
13 yes, no opposed. So congressional Term Limits Resolution, even in the coronavirus era, moving forward in Louisiana.
Philip Blumel:
That’s exciting. It’s a testament to how effective our staffers and our volunteers have been in Louisiana. The very fact that as soon as the legislature came back open, we found our bill back on the docket being considered seriously and to win at the first committee with a unanimous vote.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s good. You come into this not thinking the legislature is going to meet at all, much less to talk about congressional term limits. Not because not because congressional term limits isn’t one of the most important issues in the country. It absolutely is and always has been, but because politicians, the political class, doesn’t tend to see it that way most of the time. Like I said, it was a pleasant surprise. I watched the hearing and you could see the seats in the background had caution tape on them. You can watch this video by the way, US Term Limits YouTube channel. You can subscribe to us there, get all of our videos. It looked like a crime scene in there. It was supposed to be for social distancing, but it looked like a crime scene. Nevertheless, we got heard and we passed. Ken Clark, by the way, our regional director, he did an amazing job and I think we should actually play his testimony, part of it, so people can hear it.
Philip Blumel:
Sure, let’s hear a clip right now.
Speaker 4:
The next item on the agenda, HCR28 by representative Wright.
Ken Clark:
Good afternoon members. Today is a house concurrent resolution related to an article five convention of states related to federal term limits. For those of you who don’t know, we passed a similar resolution about an article five convention last year, or perhaps the year before, in the House and the Senate for that matter. I am here on behalf of, or in conjunction with, a group called US Term Limits. I’m happy to answer any questions, but certainly we have people related to that organization that would be happy to talk about it too.
Speaker 4:
Representative Farnum.
Rep Farnum:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think everybody that knows me well knows that I’m very much an advocate of term limits for everybody that is an elected official in this country. So I thank you for bringing this forward and at the appropriate time, I would move for favorable passage.
Speaker 4:
Representative Horton.
Rep Horton:
With term limits, we always felt that our votes were term limits. So do you not trust the people to vote correctly? Is that why you support term limits?
Speaker 4:
Mr. Clark, just state your name and address for the record.
Ken Clark:
My name is Ken Clark. I’m from Hilton Head, South Carolina. I am a regional director for US Term Limits. Mr. Chairman through you, that’s a terrific question. A lot of people do believe that elections are in fact term limits and I do trust the people. The only problem is, is that the power of incumbency today is so overwhelming that most qualified candidates that would run against an incumbent simply can’t raise the money. To get out of the gates it requires $4 million in a typical race to run against an incumbent Congressman. To give you an example of what I’m talking about, Congress right now has roughly a 13% approval rating. The reelection rate is over 94%. 94%. It is next to impossible to win an election against an incumbent. They have so many advantages. Money, they can send out mailers to their district on the taxpayer dime over and over and over again. Really the only way to get rid of an existing member of Congress is through death or indictment.
Rep Horton:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Nick Tomboulides:
I loved the line about incumbency. He said something like the only way you can bring a congressmen home now is through death or indictment. I was laughing hysterically at that.
Philip Blumel:
That was good. There was some laughter in the chamber too. That was funny.
Nick Tomboulides:
The committee loved that one too. One thing we also saw in this hearing… It’s one of the rare things in politics, real humility in an elected official. We have a sponsor there, Representative Mark Wright. They have term limits in Louisiana, so he’s elected under that. He admitted, in his testimony, when he was saying why he supports term limits, that there are a lot of people in his district who could do the job as well as he can. There are lots of great people in congressional districts who could serve just as well as Steny Hoyer or Peter King or any of these.
Philip Blumel:
Just as well as.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah.
Philip Blumel:
Right. Yeah, of course there is.
Nick Tomboulides:
At least as well as, or any of these wind bags basically, who’ve been in office since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. But you rarely see that. That is refreshing honesty in an elected official. I think that powerful statement is really what pushed us forward with really little debate.
Philip Blumel:
I was impressed too, that most of the comments from the legislators were informed. It was clear that they’d gone over this and talked to our people and looked at some of the opposing arguments. You didn’t see a lot of wacky stuff come out of left field. In the early days of this, I guess about two and a half years ago, three years ago, when we started this idea to try to call for an amendment five amendment writing convention, you’d get some really off the wall comments, things, people that didn’t have any idea what they’re talking about. They had some vague ideas they’ve heard by some radical conspiracy nuts in their district or whatever. We’re seeing less and less of that, as the word is getting out, as legislators are looking at this, as they’re talking to our volunteers and hearing from the citizens. So I really thought that was reflected in this hearing right now.
Nick Tomboulides:
It was, it was. You can tell there wasn’t a lot of trailblazing that had to be done in this hearing. Most of the legislators were super educated on term limits, super educated about how the state article five convention process works. I think that’s a credit to all the unsung heroes in the term limits movement, the people that you don’t really hear about every day, but who are making a difference.
Nick Tomboulides:
I’ll give you an example. Les Chamblee, who works on our pledge team, many, many months ago, I think last year before the elections in Louisiana, got a pledge from a state representative candidate named Barry Ivy. Les does this every day. He gets all kinds of pledges. He’s always calling candidates asking them to commit to term limits. You don’t really know when that’s going to bear fruit, but it absolutely did in this committee because representative Ivy got up there on the dais and he said, “I don’t know how I feel about local term limits, but I’m for federal term limits and I signed the pledge and I’m going to keep my word.” The pledge has a huge impact. Everything our volunteers, our employees, our staff, at US Term Limits do, has a huge impact. Even Mark Wright, the sponsor, when he got up there, he said, “I’m here today, working alongside a group called US Term Limits.” So if this organization, if this grassroots phenomenon that we have, didn’t exist, this wouldn’t be happening right now. We wouldn’t be taking this huge leap forward in a state toward getting congressional term limits. It’s like the Les Chamblee’s of the world and Ken Clark and even our volunteers in Louisiana, like Lee Neer, and other people like that, making such a huge impact. Thank you everyone whose been a part of this.
Philip Blumel:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for bringing up the pledges too, because I doubt that we would ever get a hearing on this if we didn’t have so many legislators in Louisiana who had to stop, make a decision, and then commit to whether they’re going to support it or not. Of course, I don’t have the exact number in my head, but we have enormous number of legislators in Louisiana who have done just that, and put pen to paper and said, okay, yeah you know what? I’m on board. I’m going to support this. So the pledge process works.
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 term limit Congress. Last week we had 71 state legislative candidates signe this pledge. “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.” The COVID-19 situation has led to an increase in the number of candidates signing the pledge. In January, we had 74 signers, February 92, March 105. Then in April, 145. Now in just the first two weeks of May, we’ve already had over 170 candidates sign. We’re getting more pledges for a couple of reasons. Candidates are easier to reach because they’re home rather than out campaigning. Because candidates are unable to be knocking doors, they’re looking for creative opportunities to connect with the voters. Signing the pledge is a great way for candidates to connect with voters who support term limits. Now is a great time for you to contact candidates in your area and ask them to sign the term limits pledge. Phil will be giving some instructions later in the podcast on how you get your legislator to sign the pledge using Facebook. Please take action to help us term limit Congress.
Philip Blumel:
Another topical controversy involving term limits Nick, is with the World Health Organization, the WHO, which is an agency of the United Nations. It’s been caught up in controversies of course, for a long time. It’s seen as very corrupt, very partisan, but it’s had tragic results this year when the organization dragged its feet and sat on information about the human to human and transmission of COVID-19. This was at the beginning during China’s deny everything phase. The info was coming about this human to human transmission from Taiwan, which is of course, China’s nemesis. For purely political reasons the WHO parroted the Chinese line and wouldn’t even consider engaging Taiwan. Of course the result was that we lost weeks and who knows how many deaths. This is a controversy that is subsuming the WHO, and it could lead to a loss of funding from its largest backer, which is the United States of America. So big deal. How does that relate to term limits? Well, experts are starting to say, what’s wrong with this organization? And they’re starting to look at a possible fix in term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:
I always thought the WHO was a rock band started by Roger Daultry in the 1960s. They’ve been in office for 60 years, so they probably need some kind of term limit there.
Philip Blumel:
Definitely.
Nick Tomboulides:
I’ve never been a huge fan of the World Health Organization. It’s UN sponsored obviously. They’ve had some very high highs and some very low lows. You go back, you look at the 1950s, I think they were one of the leaders in helping get rid of smallpox. But as you said, more recently they’ve become more political and they’ve become more corrupt. Nowadays they spend $200 million on travel, luxury hotels, first class airfare, all that. That’s more than they spend on really fighting a lot of these big diseases. Just months ago, they said there was no threat of coronavirus and now they’re telling us we have to wear masks to the grocery store. So I don’t put a lot of trust in them because it seems like they’re very erratic. But basically what’s been floated is, if you put a term limit on the leader of this group, you would get a lot more independence and you’d get a lot less reliance on the member states. China would not be so able to guide the policy of the WHO.
Philip Blumel:
That’s the key argument. Right now, actually there is a term limit, but it’s one of those fake term limits that politicians like that are too long to make any difference. What’s being talked about right now is a single term of six years. This idea has been floated by a guy named Shashi Tharoor, who is a member of the Indian Parliament, but also a former under secretary general of the UN. So he’s a big shot at the UN and has been seconded by other experts, including a guy named Samir Saran, who is president of a think tank in India called the Observer Research Foundation. They’re calling for this idea because they say that the WHO president is really a tool of the big interest in the UN, basically the security council members. In this particular case of course, it was China that completely had his thumb on this guy.
Philip Blumel:
The greatest example of it was is that when the US really started understanding what was happening here and the United States right away put some kind of travel ban on China. Well the WHO was opposed to this. They were parroting the Chinese lines, still at this time, saying, “Oh no, that’s not fair to China. It’s not necessary. We haven’t don’t have enough information about human to human transmission.” That is the ill that these experts are saying that a turn limit might help with.
Nick Tomboulides:
Well they said, no matter what, these international organizations, they always claim to be independent, but they’re always controlled by the big member nations.
Philip Blumel:
Of course.
Nick Tomboulides:
You know what, you’re right. He is a tool, but if you’re going to be a tool to a rich and powerful nation, why would you pick China? I would pick the United States. China is about as reliable as a Hugo. So if this guy is a tool, he’s not a very sharp tool, that’s for sure.
Philip Blumel:
Very well put.
Nick Tomboulides:
We’ve seen it suggested now, at this point, and we’ve covered it in the podcast, so many different organizations, they want independence. They want diversity of thought. They want to crack down on corruption. Naturally, term limits is the answer. The National Institutes of Health did it. They put term limits on the chief medical officers in the labs. FIFA, the soccer Federation, they had a huge corruption scandal, almost engulfed the entire thing. They put term limits in. Now it’s being proposed for the WHO. So I love the idea. I think it helps set a precedent. I think it helps generate a buzz about term limits. There was a very, very blunt quote by the head of that think tank in India, who said, “It’s a lot easier to get term limits at the international level than here in our national politics, where the politicians tend to fight it tooth and nail.” Obviously we see that in America too. Power corrupts.
Philip Blumel:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. We’ve been reporting on how US Term Limits has redirected its efforts during this period of shutdown to collecting pledges from legislators in preparation for next year’s legislative sessions, in which will once again be in the nation’s capitals pushing term limits convention bills.
Philip Blumel:
Are you on Facebook? Because if so, you can help. Every candidate for the state legislature in USA has received a copy of the US Term Limits pledge and is being called and emailed by US Term Limits staffers and volunteers to sign and return that pledge. That pledge says that, yes I’ll support the Term Limits convention bill. Please help us apply public pressure to get them to sign. Go to termlimits.com/getpledgesonfb. There, you will find instructions on how to determine who your state legislators are, who is opposing them in the primaries, and then later the general elections. Then for each candidate, you’ll see a link for their Facebook campaign page. They all have one. Go to their Facebook page and post a short comment and question, something like, “We need competitive elections and better representation. Do you support term limits for the US Congress? If the answer back yes, send them the link to pledge and ask them to sign. The pledge, the links, the instructions, everything can be found termlimits.com/getpledgesonfb.
Philip Blumel:
Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Speaker 2:
USTL.