Philip Blumel:
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of July 6, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
From the longest term incumbent to the most powerful senator, the issue of term limits is a real threat if arrogant politicians oppose the citizens will, and if the citizens are informed about it. The latest evidence came from the campaign trail last week. To parse the results, we are joined by Nick Tomboulides, Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits. Hey, Nick.
Philip Blumel:
The election season is grinding on and there’s been more primaries last week that impact the term limits issue. The big one, I think for us was Utah. First, why don’t you let us know the big picture of how many races that we were involved in at the state level, and then also, what was the final turnout?
Nick Tomboulides:
Utah, we were involved in three Senate races. Keep in mind, when we say involved, we don’t mean that we’re trying to make a certain outcome happen. What we mean is that we are taking information about the candidates, who supports term limits, who doesn’t, and we’re just flipping that over to the voters and letting them do whatever they want with it.
Philip Blumel:
Right.
Nick Tomboulides:
In Utah, there are three Senate races where we did that. They were pretty critical Senate races coming out of the convention in Utah. These were very close; District 10, District 19, and District 25. In District 10, you had a one-term incumbent named Lincoln Fillmore, who is pretty much an establishment lapdog for the leadership out in Utah, trying to defend his seat against insurgent, disruptor, former State House Rep Rich Cunningham, who has fallen out of favor with the party leadership in Utah. They do not like Cunningham at all, but Cunningham has signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge and Fillmore has not. We were telling voters about that.
Nick Tomboulides:
In District 19, you had handpicked establishment candidate, John Ferry, going up against business professor John Johnson. This was actually an open seat. Johnson was the pledge signer there. In District 25, this one was, I thought, the most interesting race of all. You had the longest-serving legislator in the history of Utah. A guy named Lyle Hillyard, who was first elected 39 years ago, way back in 1981, trying to defend his Senate seat against Chris Wilson, a businessman who owns an automotive dealership. There were three very, very exciting races, and we do have some preliminary results there.
Philip Blumel:
And what are they? Did we win? Did we lose?
Nick Tomboulides:
Lyle Hillyard, longest-serving legislator in Utah history has been defeated. Wilson has absolutely clobbered him 62 percent to 38 percent. There are some votes still yet to be counted, absentees that came in on election day, but there’s just no possible way for Hillyard to catch up. He is toast.
Philip Blumel:
Finished. He’s retired.
Nick Tomboulides:
Absolute toast.
Philip Blumel:
And it’s about time. We were following this very closely, and term limits are a big reason why Senator Hillyard is now retired. He came out complaining about term limits, although he has said it sometimes that he’s sort of supportive of the idea. He has also come out explicitly against the idea of having an Article Five convention to propose an amendment to limit congressional terms. Dead set against it. Meanwhile, his opponent was a pledge signer who was actively supporting the idea of congressional term limits and a convention to do that. It was pretty clear as day, and we put that information in front of voters. They saw it, and boy, they took action on that.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, Hillyard is a lawyer, so it’s an open question whether politics can survive with one fewer lawyer. If the number drops from six million of them to 5,999,999, will our Republic survive? I’m not sure. But look, I was negative eight years old when this guy was elected. I was not even a concept at that point, back in 1981. Hillyard, now, to his credit, he was named the most effective legislator in Utah in 1981. But as with most career politicians, he has only gone downhill since. Last year, he pushed through a massive tax hike that would have had everyone in Utah paying more for groceries and essentials. It was massively unpopular. It was going to crush working families. It was so unpopular, actually, they had to repeal it. They were forced to, because people got so angry. He was the ringleader on that.
Nick Tomboulides:
He always obstructs term limits, of course, and this time he met his toughest challenger yet, a guy Chris Wilson, whose entire life is not politics. He was a true outsider. He was running on term limits and fresh ideas. That was the theme of the campaign, fresh ideas. It’s a political earthquake in Utah. I will repeat it again, so it can sink in. The longest-serving legislator in Utah history, 40 years in office, has been defeated by a businessman who loves term limits.
Philip Blumel:
Fantastic. I’d put out one more thing about that before we move on to the next race. Hillyard was quoted as saying, “I’m not opposed to term limits on the federal level, but I’m not interested in having a convention of the States.” When I saw that, it struck me as so absurd to claim that you’re for term limits if you’re opposed to the only means to achieve them. That’s like saying you love baseball, but you’re against swinging bats around because it’s dangerous. Everyone saw through that. I’m pleased to hear it.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah. By the way, we did a ton of mailers in this race, but we didn’t do the mailer so that Chris Wilson would win. We did them so voters would have more information about these candidates, and it was the voters District 25 who decided, “You know what? We have had enough of this career politician.”
Speaker 4:
This is a public service announcement!
Philip Blumel:
On July 14, Alabama congressional candidate, Bill Hightower, will face Jerry Carl in a runoff election to decide who gets to represent the Republican party on the November general election ballot for Congressional District number one. Hightower has signed the U.S. Term Limits Congressional Pledge, and while an Alabama State Senator had also signed and lived up to the U.S Term Limits State Pledge, pledging support for the term limits convention, his opponent, Jerry Carl, has so far refused to sign the pledge.
Speaker 5:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 33 years in Congress. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, 39 years in Congress. Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler, 27 years in Congress. Political dinosaurs have ruled Washington too long. That’s why President Trump and Bill Hightower demand tough term limits. Conservative Republican Bill Hightower, for Trump, for term limits, for Congress. Club for Growth Action is responsible for the content of this advertising.
Nick Tomboulides:
Some background on Utah too, in case people don’t have it, we’ve been working to pass the term limits convention through Utah for quite some time and we’ve gotten nowhere, and it’s all been the state Senate’s fault. The Utah House had no problem with this. They passed it twice. Sort of mirrors what’s going on in Louisiana right now. But of course you need both chambers to say the state has officially made the call. The President of the Utah Senate is a dude named Stewart Adams, whom I’ve met on several occasions, and the vibe I get from him is he doesn’t take us seriously. He feels no urgency to pass this, even though nearly 90 percent of Utah voters want it, so he just allows it to die in committee over and over again.
Nick Tomboulides:
I don’t even think the guy remembers my name from all the times we’ve spoken. He just doesn’t care. He’s never cared. So this year we decided, look, enough is enough. We’re done being ignored. The issue is too important. We’re going to drop an effing atomic bomb into Utah politics, and we’re going to do it in races that are very important to the leadership.
Philip Blumel:
That’s what happens.
Nick Tomboulides:
Deal with it.
Philip Blumel:
Super.
Nick Tomboulides:
There’s no doubt we’ve gotten their attention here.
Philip Blumel:
All right. Well, that’s one of the three races we just discussed, and let’s say number two, did we win or lose?
Nick Tomboulides:
Let’s look at these other two races. Lincoln Fillmore, the incumbent versus Rich Cunningham, challenger. Cunningham has signed the pledge. And then you have John Ferry, the establishment guy against John Johnson, another pledge signer. What happened here was very interesting. We were doing the mailers along the way. We started them about a month ago, and leadership in Utah is starting to sweat. They are getting worried that their handpicked stooges are going to lose. And keep in mind, they’ve told us all along Fillmore and Ferry had these races locked up and nobody has any business even challenging them. You know the drill.
Philip Blumel:
I do.
Nick Tomboulides:
They’re getting more nervous than a whore in church at this point, so they create a fake pack called Utah Term Limits. When you hear the words Utah term limits, what do you think that stands for, Phil?
Philip Blumel:
Being for term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:
You’d be absolutely wrong. This doesn’t stand for term limits at all. This is a fake PAC. It stands for sleeves. It stands for lobbyists. It stands for incumbency, everything wrong with politics, but it’s there. And in the midst of these races, it started making fake mailers with fake information to confuse the voters. So you would get our mailer that said Lincoln Fillmore refused to sign the U.S Term Limits Pledge, and then you would get a fake mailer from Utah Term Limits that says Lincoln Fillmore’s endorsed by Utah Term Limits. Of course, they don’t tell you that Utah Term Limits was created one week ago, and that it was created by lobbyists, the most powerful lobbyists in Utah, and a state Senator whose wife is the cousin of one of these candidates that we’re exposing. Not to mention that, get this, the lobbyists created the pack one day after the deadline where it would have to disclose its donors.
Nick Tomboulides:
Had he done it one day earlier, everyone would know where all this dirty money was coming from to tell these lies about these candidates, but now it’s all in secrecy. It’s all shrouded in darkness, so nobody has any idea. The registered officers for the pack are the most powerful lobbyists in Utah and the state Senator, whose wife is the cousin of a candidate, so you’ve got a cabal. It is the wealthiest special interest in Utah forming, trying to stop U.S. term limits, trying to derail us, and then election day arrives and the results were very interesting. They actually lost one of these two races. The fake PAC lost the pro-term limits candidate. John Johnson won. He beat John Ferry in District 19, 56 to 44 so far.
Philip Blumel:
Wonderful.
Nick Tomboulides:
There’s still some ballots outstanding, but it’s not enough to tip the balance of that.
Philip Blumel:
Okay.
Nick Tomboulides:
Then we got to zero in on District 10, where you’ve got Lincoln Fillmore, the incumbent. He’s clinging to a four-point lead over Rich Cunningham. He’s up 52, 48. There’s only 600 votes separating these two, and there are still 6,000 votes out there yet to be counted that are going to come in over the course of the next week. So at the moment, Term Limits Pledge signers are two for two, and the third race is too close to call.
Philip Blumel:
Wow.
Nick Tomboulides:
But we can say definitively that despite all of their underhanded sleaze and tricks, the Utah pack has failed to save its cronies.
Philip Blumel:
Wow. Good work to everybody in Utah. I know that we’ve been working on Utah a long time, educating the voters about the politicians’ position on term limits, and we’ll be back in Utah again with the term limits convention bill.
Ken Quinn:
Hi, this is Ken Quinn, Regional Director with U.S. Term Limits. In this segment, we are going to see how the first Congress understood that an Article Five convention was a limited convention. Virginia submitted the very first Article Five application, primarily for a bill of rights. This debate occurred on May 5th, 1789, and what is very important here is that 54 members of that Congress were either delegates to the Federal Convention or delegates to their state conventions, which ratified the constitution, which means they completely understood the intent of an Article Five convention. The following is from the House record. I will be stating the member’s name and then will read their comment, and will summarize at the end.
Ken Quinn:
Mr. Budino: According to the terms of the Constitution, the business cannot be taken up until a certain number of States have concurred in similar applications. Mr. Madison: Said he had no doubt, but the House was inclined to treat the present application with respect, but he doubted the propriety of committing it, because it would seem to imply that the House had a right to deliberate upon the subject. This, he believed was not the case, until two thirds of the state legislatures concurred in such application, and then it is out of the power of Congress to decline complying. The most respectful and constitutional mode of performing our duty will be to let it entered on the minutes and remain upon the files of the House until similar applications come to hand from two thirds of the States. Mr. Budino: Now, in this case, there is nothing left for us to do but call one when two thirds of the state legislatures apply for that purpose.
Ken Quinn:
Mr. Bland: The application now before the committee contains a number of reasons why it is necessary to call convention. By the Fifth Article of the Constitution, Congress are obligated to order this convention when two thirds of the legislatures apply for it, but how can these reasons be properly weighed unless it’d be done in committee? Mr. Tucker: Thought it not right to disregard the application of any state, and inferred that the house had a right to consider every application that was made. If two thirds had not applied, the subject might be taken into consideration, but if two thirds had applied, it precluded deliberation on the part of the House. Mr. Page: Thought it the best way to enter the application at large upon the journals, and do the same by all that came in until sufficient were made to obtain their object.
Ken Quinn:
Based upon that debate, we can summarize the following: Number one, two thirds of the state legislatures needed to concur on the subject in their applications. Number two, Congress has no authority to deliberate on the subject and must call the convention once two thirds of the legislatures apply. And number three, Congress needs to weigh the applications to determine the subject matter, and may take it into consideration if two thirds of the legislatures do not apply for it. A few minutes later after this debate, Congress weighed the amendments that were submitted by the States, and in the end proposed 12 amendments for ratification. The first 10 were ratified in 1791 and are known today as the Bill of Rights. U.S Term Limits is seeking to have two thirds of the state legislatures concur in applications for a congressional term limits amendment. Please visit termlimits.com. Join our effort and let’s get this done.
Philip Blumel:
We had another really close one in Kentucky. We’ve been talking on the podcast about the U.S Senate race between what will be the turtle, and either on the democratic side, either Amy McGrath, former Marine, and Charles Booker. The election in Kentucky in the Democratic primary was two weeks ago. It took a full week because the election was so close to really have it called, and by a nose, Amy McGrath is the nominee, will be running up against Mitch McConnell in the general election, and is confident that she can beat him, and it is possible. We’ve seen polling that suggests they’re pretty close.
Nick Tomboulides:
You have to give a hand to this guy, Charles Booker, who ran Democratic primary against Amy McGrath. He came out of nowhere and he was dramatically outfunded by McGrath.
Philip Blumel:
He’s a first term legislator in that state. First term.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, first term, so he ran a good grassroots campaign. He secured some national endorsements, and he’s a term limits guy too, Charles Booker. You can see video on our website. But yeah, Amy has captured it, and as we spoke about a few weeks ago, our polling shows that she can win, but she can only win if she talks about term limits. Right now, she’s in the margin of error against McConnell. It’s a toss up, and when you have a toss up, that always tends to favor the incumbent. But if she starts talking about term limits and that message actually penetrates in Kentucky, people are aware of it, she improves with Republicans, she improves with moderates, and she could win by as many as 15 points according to this poll that was done by Scott Rasmussen. So it would really be a no-brainer. The ball is in her court at this point to run the campaign the right way. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink.
Philip Blumel:
That’s right. We’ve seen this reported, this term limits effect in this race, we’ve seen it reported in Newsweek and she knows it. She’s tweeted about it, and just last week, she was interviewed on ABC News about why she thinks that she should replace Senator Mitch McConnell in the U.S. Senate, and this is what she said.
Speaker 7:
Mitch McConnell has won at least six terms. Why do you feel the Kentuckians are ready for change and that they are going to choose you?
Amy McGrath:
Well, Kentuckians are ready for change. Mitch McConnell is not super well-liked here, and a lot of people feel like he has gone to Washington and forgotten about them, and forgotten about the real needs of our state. He now represents Washington DC and the swamp, and the monied special interests more than he represents teachers and firefighters and everyday people here. I’ve built a team to be able to take him on toe-to-toe, and I think people are very much ready for that to happen.
Speaker 7:
A lot of times, people say that Mitch McConnell is not well-liked in Kentucky and yet he continues to win, so I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at. Why is now different?
Amy McGrath:
Well, look, he has always had an enormous amount of resources. He’s always had way more than his opponent, and I also believe that right now, people are so tired of the dysfunction. They are so tired of the partisanship, and no one epitomizes that more than Mitch McConnell, and that’s why they’re looking for change. And look, when I talk to people, and this is people on both sides of the aisle, you know what the one thing that gets people to nod their heads in agreement? Term limits. I’m for them. I don’t think anybody should be in Washington for 40-some years. It’s not good for our democracy. To me, that just is an example of people being tired and wanting new leaders, and wanting to move our country and Kentucky in the right direction.
Nick Tomboulides:
I like the pushback there about the power of incumbency.
Philip Blumel:
Yes, absolutely. She understands this issue.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s so rare. Mitch McConnell is the sitting Majority Leader in the Senate, and those guys don’t lose elections, because all of the national money pours in to support them. I would be willing to bet that most of Mitch McConnell’s fundraising comes from outside Kentucky. I’m almost sure of it. So he is very difficult to defeat, and that’s why he’s been in office since 1985. But anytime you see a member of leadership get defeated, and it’s so rare, it’s so historical when it happens, they always lose on term limits. I’ll give you an example. Tom Foley was the Speaker of the House in 1994. He was a Democrat. He actually lost his reelection campaign to a guy named George Nethercutt, a Republican, over term limits, because the voters in Washington state passed term limits on Foley and then he filed a lawsuit against his own voters. That was curtains for him.
Nick Tomboulides:
He was the first Speaker since 1862 to be defeated. Then in, I want to say 2014, Dave Brat ran against Eric Cantor. Dave Brat’s campaign was all about term limits too. I think Cantor was the first Majority Whip to be defeated in over 100 years, so these are anomalies. This almost never happens, but when it happens, you need to catch lightning in a bottle, and the only issue that’s been ever able to do it is term limits.
Philip Blumel:
And there’s a good reason for that, because when you have reached that pinnacle power, you didn’t just fall into that role because you chose a lucky card. You got there because you played the game all the way to the top, and you are part and parcel of the machine and what’s wrong with the way the Congress is run. You wouldn’t be there otherwise, and so it’s a natural, natural issue to use against someone in that position. Still going to be a hard slog. No matter what the polling says, the pressure will be so great. But if she pulls it off, it’s going to be term limits, and that will be another A bomb dropped on the political establishment when you see another big long-term incumbent, who is at the pinnacle of power, defeated by term limits.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s going to be a fascinating race. I like when you call him the turtle, because if you ever read the book, Yertle the Turtle, some of the quotes from Yertle sound like things Mitch McConnell would say. I mean, Yertle builds himself this big stack of turtles and he is the ruler. He is the king. He is the one who holds all the power. He says, “Hush up your mouth. I’m the mighty Yertle. You have no right to talk over the world’s highest turtle.”
Philip Blumel:
Wow.
Nick Tomboulides:
“I rule from the clouds, over land, over sea. There’s nothing that’s higher than me.” I think that’s how much McConnell feels sometimes. It is going to be quite a melee in Kentucky.
Philip Blumel:
Well, we will continue to follow this story for sure. Thanks for joining us for another weekly episode of No Uncertain Terms. With elections coming, your state legislator needs to hear from you. Go to termlimits.com, and under the Current Actions tab, choose Contact Your State Legislator. Put in your address, and you can send an email to both your state House and Senate rep to sign the Term Limits Pledge. That’s termlimits.com under the Current Actions tab. Thank you. We’ll be back next week.
Speaker 2:
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Speaker 9:
USTL.