Philip Blumel:
Term limits go viral. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of August 3rd, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
In June, 2019, US Term Limits was asked to provide testimony before a subcommittee of the US Senate on Senator Ted Cruz’s congressional term limits amendment bill. This was the first hearing on the issue in over a decade. While remarkable in itself, the Nick Tomboulides testimony that day has taken on a life of its own, attracting millions of hits for the video and turning the executive director of US Term Limits into an internet star. Has someone forwarded you this video over the last year? Probably more than once. In this episode, we revisit Nick’s testimony, the backstory, and the aftermath of the most popular term limits video of all time.
Stacey Selleck:
Hey, this is Stacey Selleck here, digital director for US Term Limits. I’m jumping in today to interview a career politician’s worst nightmare, a man who makes politicians cry or forces them to whip out their dirty playbook of institutional knowledge on how to pull slimy tricks and tactics on their electorate to fight term limits. Mr. term limits himself, Nick Tomboulides. How’s it going, Nick?
Nick Tomboulides:
Hey, it’s going very well. Thank you. That was probably the best introduction I’ve ever had. So kudos to you for that.
Stacey Selleck:
Thank you very much. Before we begin, I wanted to touch base on some important term limits news that happened this week. The first topic is Herman Cain. We want to pay tribute to Herman Cain who died last week.
Nick Tomboulides:
Sure. Well yeah, Herman Cain was sort of a pioneer, I think, in modern politics in a sense, because he had never held public office before. He was the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He was an entrepreneur, a business guy. I think he might’ve been appointed to chairmanship at a federal reserve at one point, but for the most part, Herman Cain was a citizen leader. He was never elected to anything, but he ran for president in 2012, and I think he really set the tone for where politics were going to go, because he was an outsider, he spoke very blunt truths, and he was a term limits guy. Our organization approached him in 2012. That was before I came on board here, and he was very enthusiastic about term limits and the value of new blood, of outsiders, of people who could think critically who had managed large organizations in the private sector, of infusing politics with that sort of new blood and that kind of ingenuity –
Stacey Selleck:
Real world experience.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, real world experience, and he was just a genuinely nice guy as well. And I’ve been distrustful of politicians my entire life, but when Herman Cain came along, something about him really resonated with me. I just liked how he shot from the hip, how he had no filter, how he was anti-politician, and that resonated with me, and so it was something that kind of got me involved in politics. I wouldn’t say it brought me along to the term limits movement, but it was kind of something that happened during my formative years that really inspired me to get involved, and so all credit to Herman for that, for just bringing a new voice into the process, and he’ll be sorely missed. I think he was an important voice on the national scene.
Stacey Selleck:
Yeah, he was. So tell me a little bit about the clip that we’re going to play right now.
Nick Tomboulides:
So this was back when he was running for president, and obviously the political elites in Washington, they came after him because he was rising in the polls, and for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to say that he had no political experience, which kind of shows you how tone deaf a lot of those guys were. He’s running against senators and governors and they thought it’d be a great idea to say, “Well Herman Cain is not a crusty old politician like the rest of us,” and they thought the voters would dislike that, but I thought that was a benefit. I think most people agreed, and Herman Cain just had the best line in responding to that criticism.
Herman Cain:
Everyone says, “But you’ve never held public office before,” and I say, “Well, all of the people in Washington DC, they held public office before. How is that working for you?”
Nick Tomboulides:
And he’s right, by the way, how’s that working out for you?
Stacey Selleck:
Exactly. All that institutional knowledge that everybody says that we need so desperately and they’re bundling everything left and right. So next up we’re going to talk about the Ohio speaker Householder. I guess they took a vote last week about getting him out of office and it passed unanimously. I know you guys mentioned it last week on the podcast.
Nick Tomboulides:
On the vote, better late than never, good riddance to bad rubbish. In a state with no term limits, a speaker of the house has so much power and so much control, not just over the legislature, but over bureaucrats, over the courts, as we see in Illinois, that they’re able to conceal corruption for a very long period of time. There’s been a quote that’s been circulating in Illinois for a long time that says, “There’s a graveyard of bodies outside Mike Madigan’s office of the people who’ve tried to come after him and tried to get him in trouble for corruption.” Humans will always abuse power if they’re given too much of it. It’s just human nature. You’re never going to eradicate corruption completely. Even in a term limit state, there will be corruption, but you will have less of it. It will not be allowed to stick around for as long a period of time and it will be discovered and rooted out faster, and that’s what we’re seeing in Ohio. When they found out that Householder was corrupt, they addressed the problem and they kicked him out of the caucus. They didn’t circle the wagons and try to defend him, and that’s how corruption should be handled properly when it’s found, when it’s discovered.
Scott Tillman:
Hi, this is Scott Tillman, the national field director with US Term Limits. We’re getting close to the end of primaries. The first two weeks of August will have 11 state primaries, and after that only seven state primaries will remain. Like most Americans, I don’t trust politicians, and about the only way you can count on what a politician says is if you can get it in writing. At US Term Limits, we run an aggressive pledge program and we get it in writing. Over 300 congressional candidates have signed the US Term Limits pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the US Term Limits amendment of three House terms and two Senate terms and no longer limit. Over 60 of those candidates are in states with primaries the first two weeks of August.
Scott Tillman:
Because there are two ways to amend the constitution, we also have a pledge for state legislators. Over 1100 state legislative candidates have put their commitment to term limits on Congress in writing by signing 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.” Over 200 of these candidates are in states with primaries in the first two weeks of August. You could find the names of these candidates on our website, termlimits.com, and you can contact candidates in your area and ask them to sign these term limits pledges. Like our page on Facebook and there you’ll find instructions on getting the pledge to candidates in your area. Help the movement by taking action to help us term limit Congress.
Stacey Selleck:
Last year, you went in front of Ted Cruz’s subcommittee on the constitution on the hearing for SJR1, the resolution to term limit Congress. Why don’t you give everybody the backstory, explain how you were invited to be on the panel, who was actually in attendance, and how many of the senators chairs were empty? That’s what I want to know and why.
Nick Tomboulides:
Oh, wow. See, I don’t even know the exact number that were empty. I know a lot. I was invited by Ted Cruz, believe it or not. A lot of people see the video and they look at Ted Cruz and they think I’m going against Ted Cruz. That’s not exactly true. He’s our lead sponsor for term limits in the Senate. He’s actually a good guy on this issue. He’s the person who invited me out, but somehow Ted managed to get approval from Senate leadership to hold a hearing on term limits. I know it’s something that’s been very important to him for a very long period of time. He got approval to do it. He’s the chair of the judiciary subcommittee. They know US Term Limits is the leading advocate for term limits on Congress, and so they called our organization and they asked me if I’d be willing to come out and provide some background information.
Nick Tomboulides:
I don’t think they knew that I was going to be as aggressive and passionate and vocal as I was. I think they thought maybe I would just come and share some numbers on term limits and that would be that. Some of the media caught wind of it. C-SPAN found out there would be a hearing and they wanted to revive the debate on term limits so they invited me to come out, and so I decided I’d come to Washington DC for one day, I’d do C-SPAN in the morning, I’d meet with some senators in between, and then we’d have the congressional hearing and we’d see how it went. I didn’t know whether we’d be getting a vote. I didn’t really know how much time I would have to speak. I didn’t know who else would be there, but it was certainly an incredible experience and I think it was kind of like a watershed moment for the term limits movement.
Nick Tomboulides:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and senators for providing me an opportunity to address this important issue. I want you to imagine for a moment that you are an employer and you’ve got some problems with your employees. When you hired these employees, they promised they would do exactly what you asked of them, but once they got the job, they became a nightmare. They stopped listening to you and started using the job to line their own pockets. They took the company credit card and racked up more debt than you could afford to pay back. They became so obsessed with keeping their jobs that they forgot to do their jobs, and after all that failure, all that disappointment, and all that incompetence, your employees came to you and said, “We deserve a raise.” If you’re a reasonable person, that should make your blood boil, and yet that is exactly what it feels like to be an American taxpayer.
Nick Tomboulides:
The first three words in our constitution are “We, the people”. It’s written larger than anything else because the framers of that document, the architects of our republic, wanted to remind you at all times who’s in charge, we, the people. We are your employers and you have an obligation to listen to us. So I come to you with a message from the American people. We demand term limits for members of Congress. In fact, according to the most recent national polls on the issue, 82% of Americans want term limits. That includes support from 89% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats, and 83% of independent voters. This is not a left or right issue. This is an American issue. In fact, term limits could be the only issue with support from both president Trump and former president Obama. Now there was a time about 25 years ago when Congress was debating this. Nearly every opponent of term limits up here had the same rebuttal: experience, experience, experience.
Nick Tomboulides:
We need experience to do this job right. If only you leave your Congress member in office for decades on end, he or she will become such a policy expert that all our problems will be solved. In hindsight, that was one of the worst predictions ever. This system is broken. Congress has given us $20 trillion in debt, the longest war in American history, a broken healthcare system, a broken immigration system, a tax code written by lobbyists, an explosion of money in politics. Worst of all, too few here have the courage to address these problems because the only focus is on getting reelected. That’s why it comes as no surprise that Congress has a 14% approval rating, and 60% of Americans say that they would fire every single member of Congress if they could. Congress is less popular than traffic jams, root canals, and hemorrhoids. You’re beating head lice, but the lice have asked for a recount.
Nick Tomboulides:
Unfortunately, elections alone cannot fix this problem, not because voters like you guys so much, but due to the nearly unbreakable power of incumbency. At the same time members of Congress publicly claim elections are free and fair, they secretly deploy every trick in the book to keep power. Incumbents get $9 in special interest money for every dollar that goes to a challenger, and if incumbents are having difficulty raising money, not to worry, they’re allowed to send campaign style mailers at taxpayer expense. That’s to say nothing of all the free media and name recognition politicians naturally get just for being in office. The incumbent advantage creates a barrier to entry for everyday Americans without the connections to fund a campaign. It is the case for term limits. Elections may, in theory, be capable of dethrone incumbents, but that isn’t how it works in the real world. Congressional incumbents have a 98% reelection rate.
Nick Tomboulides:
That probably explains why Congress looks more like a country club than a melting pot. It’s predominantly made up of lawyers and politicians and is disproportionately old, white, rich, and male. Term limits would give us a legislature that better reflects the diversity of our society. The message longterm incumbents send to young people like me seems to be, “We want you just close enough to the political process to help us win, but don’t get too close and take our jobs.” The American people have lost confidence in this Congress, and for good reason. We routinely see abuses of power. 18 months ago it was revealed that members of Congress were secretly using taxpayer money to settle lawsuits, some for sexual harassment. You still haven’t disclosed how our money was spent and on whose behalf. So term limits is a check on arrogance, it’s a check on incumbency, and it’s a check on power.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s a way to restore political courage while bringing fresh faces and ideas to Washington. As Ben Franklin said, “For the rulers to return among the people was not to degrade them, but to promote them.” As Kanye West said, “No one man should have all that power.” Here’s the dilemma we face: over 80% of Americans want term limits to happen. Donald Trump and Barack Obama want it. It is being blocked purely by the self-interest of Congress. If this were a trial, you all would have to recuse yourselves, because there is a colossal conflict of interest. If term limits pass, you won’t stay in the limelight forever. You won’t be the center of attention, and some people might even stop laughing at your jokes. You’ll have to become ordinary citizens, and that is, my friends the entire point. We’re asking you to do what’s right and listen to the people you represent. It’s time to bring the gravy train into the station, end the reign of career politicians, and give Congress back to the people. Please support Senate Joint Resolution one for term limits. Thank you.
Stacey Selleck:
Right from when you started the testimony, you slammed them. You just slammed them to the ground, directly to their faces, pulled no punches, and you let them know how you really feel.
Nick Tomboulides:
I went for the jugular. I figured the other people on the panel, they’re going to be political scientists. They’re going to sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. They’re going to put people to sleep. I wanted to stand out, I wanted to be different, and I wanted to give a voice to the American people. So I think that’s what we did.
Paul Jacob:
Common Sense. The limits of corruption. Another corrupt term limits hating careerist politician bites the dust. Federal prosecutors say Republican speaker, Larry Householder, and four others, including a former state GOP chairman, perpetrated a $60 million federal bribery scheme, reports the Dayton Daily News. Connected to a taxpayer funded bailout of Ohio’s two nuclear power plants, last year a citizen initiated referendum campaign. So to give voters the final say on the legislature’s $1.5 billion baby, the relentless machinations of HB6’s backers, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Thomas Suddes points out, kept that repeal effort launched against the bill off Ohio’s ballot. At a news conference to explain the arrest of Householder and his co-conspirators on racketeering charges, federal prosecutors detailed some of the ways the scheme illegally blocked last year’s referendum effort. Now the rush is on to repeal House bill six. Mr. Suddes is correct that the legislature also won’t be okay until voters amend the Ohio constitution to make it easier to place issues on the statewide ballot for up or down votes.
Paul Jacob:
But when he goes on to argue that term limits are “part of the problem,” now the only thing Ohio term limits need is to make the limits lifetime, forbidding legislators from returning after a time out. Householder had previously been speaker from 2001 to 2004. While he officially left office due to term limits, informs the Plain Dealer, he departed Columbus amid an FBI investigation that closed without charges. Householder also came to our attention back in March, when he called Ohio’s eight year limits pretty oppressive. Before the pandemic he was pushing a ballot measure designed to weaken the term limits law so he could serve until 2036, foreshadowing what Putin did later in Russia. I refer to them, Putin and Householder, as two Pauls in a pod, but now Householder reminds me more of former Arkansas state Senator John Woods, who after sponsoring a deceptive ballot measure to weaken term limits, was convicted on multiple felony charges and is serving his latest term in prison. This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. For more common sense, go to thisiscommonsense.org.
Stacey Selleck:
So in your wrap up, you tell the senators that they need to recuse themselves because in your words, they’re a colossal conflict of interest and it’s time for them to go back to being ordinary citizens and give Congress back to the people. Discuss your motivation for that.
Nick Tomboulides:
It’s something that always bothers me, that 82% of Americans want term limits, and any time term limits is in the news, the first thing the reporters do is they call up the local politicians or they call up the member of Congress and they say, “Well, Oh gee, what do you think of this?” It’s like if you were debating how long prison sentences should be and you call up the criminals and say, “Hey OJ, what do you think? Should you be in prison for a day or 50 years?” What do you think OJ is going to say? I mean, term limits, by design, we want to anger politicians. We want to rattle cages. We want to make them uncomfortable. We want to remind them that they are public servants. That is the whole point of this. The whole point of this is to redirect power away from them and back into the hands of ordinary citizens, to just give power back to the people instead of a ruling class, and yet they control the debate.
Nick Tomboulides:
I mean if there’s one glitch in how our constitutional structure is designed, it’s that the people whose careers, whose perks and privileges are most threatened by term limits are the very people you need to pass it, at least if you’re going through Washington DC. The beauty of that is you don’t have to. We’ve got the article five path. You can use the states to put pressure on Congress to force them to do the right thing. So the states were kind of intended to be like the fourth branch of government, in a sense, and we have that opportunity through term limits and the term limits convention.
Nick Tomboulides:
If you want to be a part of the movement, if you’re inspired by it, if you want to take power back from career politicians, the thing to do is not to pick up the phone, per se, and call your Congressman, but call your state legislators, visit your state legislators, and maybe once the pandemic is in the rear view mirror, go to your state Capitol and get them to vote for term limits on Congress, because that is where the real power lies in bringing the states together to overcome this corrupt swamp. I mean, you saw how many senators … they don’t even care about term limits. There are so many of them missing. There’s so many empty chairs in there. Kamala Harris was one person, she was supposed to be on that committee, but she missed the hearing because she was campaigning to be president. So for her, it was all about her political ambitions instead of attending to an important topic like term limits.
Stacey Selleck:
All right. So if you want to watch this video, see what the sensation is about with Nick, go to termlimits.com/nick. That’s termlimits.com/nick, and while you’re there, sign the petition.
Speaker 8:
This Tuesday, August 4th, a documentary called The Swamp premiers on HBO. It features three pledge signers in congress as they provide you with a behind the scenes look how the Washington machine runs. According to one of the directors, “When we got there and started studying it from the inside, it was so much worse than we ever could have imagined.” You don’t want to miss this. Find out more at termlimits.com/swamp.
Philip Blumel:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. This week’s action item is for every activist in America, no matter what state you live in. We have been diligently collecting pledges from Congress members for years that commit them to co-sponsoring and voting for the US Term Limits amendment. There are about 70 in the US Congress that have signed the pledge. Now they need to hear from you. This week, please sign the online petition calling for hearings and a vote in 2020 on HJR20, the US Term Limits amendment. You can do this at termlimits.com/2020housevote. After signing the petition, send the link to your friends and family so they can add their names to the petition that’s termlimits.com/2020housevote. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck:
If you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe and leave a review. The No Uncertain Terms podcast can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, and now Google Play.