Philip Blumel: A Supreme setback. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement published on March 11th, 2024. This is episode 234.
Stacey Selleck: Your Sanctuary from Partisan Politics.
Philip Blumel: Even as our string of successes in the state legislatures continue, the Term Limits Movement faced a big legal setback last week with the US Supreme Court’s unanimous decision prohibiting Colorado from keeping Donald Trump’s name off the ballot. Huh? Odd, ey? What could that have to do with us? But it does. It wasn’t about the result of decision, nothing to do with Trump, but instead it came from the give and take within the court on how to patch together a 9-0 decision on such a polarizing question. The grounds the court used in the Trump versus Anderson case to deny Colorado’s right to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot helped solidify the shaky and controversial split decision of 1995 US Term Limits versus Thornton. That’s right. You remember US Term Limits versus Thornton. 23 states had passed Term Limits on their congressional delegations. Yes, their federal representatives via the initiative process in 1990, 1992 and 1994.
Philip Blumel: The Term Limits Movement was and remains the most successful initiative movement in US history. But in that decision, all of those elections and all of those millions of votes were voided. As a result, some of the same politicians who were serving in Congress in 1995 are still there. Well, along with our congressional strategy and our Article V convention strategy, US Term Limits has also been pursuing a Supreme Court strategy. I mean, after all, Thornton was a split decision, 5-4, and it had not been used as a precedent in other important cases. And it’s always been controversial.
Philip Blumel: I mean, Clarence Thomas who wrote the dissent in Thornton, is still on the court. And before he was on the court, Neil Gorsuch wrote a famous law brief in which he argued that the Term Limits initiatives were constitutional. This is back pre 1995. So you can see how we would hold out hope that a new case might come along that would permit the new court to revisit and revise Thornton, maybe even throw it overboard. Well, I can’t tell you that can’t happen. But now I am a bit discouraged after last week’s decision, because Trump versus Anderson cited US Term Limits versus Thornton three times and used some of its logic, not in a rickety 5-4 decision mind you, but in a 9-0 unanimous decision that outside of I guess some partisan political circles is really not that controversial. In other words, US Term Limits versus Thornton has found its place in precedent and hence will be much more difficult to dislodge.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: Mike Braun is the US Senator for the state of Indiana who is running for the governor of that state. He gave a speech in the Senate last week in which he laid out with frightening examples the inability of the Congress to set priorities and reign in federal earmarks and therefore the ballooning national debt. But for our purposes, the most important part was his solution.
Mike Braun: It’s no wonder to me that Americans say, what is going on here? How are we gonna change it? We’re not gonna change it until you demand it. Two simple things, term limits and a balanced budget amendment. Then it’d run like your households and most other governments around our own country.
Philip Blumel: But of course our Supreme Court strategy was always our Hail Mary and it still is. I mean, you would be forgiven for not even knowing we had a Supreme Court strategy, and this Supreme Court decision does not in any way hinder our major state and federal efforts. So I should shake this off and move on. Right? Besides, our state and federal strategies continue to barrel forward, every week we get more pledge signers and/or co-sponsors in Congress for the US Term Limits’ amendment, and to put maximum pressure on Congress to approve that we get more state legislators committed as well, every week. As a result, we have six states so far that have officially applied for an amendment writing convention under Article V of the US Constitution, limited to the subject of Congressional term limits. North Carolina and Tennessee, both of which have passed one chamber so far this session, are neck and neck to see which state will be number seven.
Philip Blumel: And we’re working our way through the legislatures and numerous other states. For instance, last week, March 6th, the Kansas Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs passed the Senate concurrent resolution 1609, which applies for the Term Limits Convention. The effort is led by Senator JR Claeys and it passed with a voice vote and only one objection. A special shout out has been earned by the Terminator Shanna Chamblee for her great work in Kansas. Now, why is it working in Kansas? Well, because we have fresh polling that shows 83% of Kansans support congressional term limits. And we went into Kansas with more than 50 legislators who have signed the term limits pledge promising to support the effort in advance. That is key. A few days later on March 1st, the Idaho Senate Judiciary Committee passed Senate concurrent Resolution 114, which applies for the term limits convention with the same language as Kansas.
Philip Blumel: The effort led by Senator Cindy Carlson passed with five ayes and four nays. That was a nail-biter. And the next step in Idaho now is the Senate floor. Special thanks there to Term Limits Warrior CQ. And then there’s Alaska, late Thursday night, March 7th, the term limits convention passed the House State Affairs Committee in Alaska and is heading to the Judiciary Committee. So if you live in Kansas or Idaho or Alaska, please go to termlimits.com/takeaction and hit the take action button for your state. Please do this right away. You’ll have the opportunity to send a quick message to the relevant decision makers at the next step in the process in those states. I should point out we have a date now for the next Senate hearing in Tennessee, March 19th. That’s the big one. So let’s finish up this episode of No Uncertain Terms with the excerpt of the latest episode of Breaking News on Term Limits with Holly Robichaud in which she gets the latest news from Tennessee from our state sponsor, Richard Briggs. Take it away, Holly.
Holly Robichaud: Hey. Well, today I am so glad that Senator Richard Briggs from Tennessee has joined us and he’s one of our sponsors in Tennessee, and I wanted to see what’s happening in Tennessee and get his take on it. So first up, thank you for joining us today.
Sen. Richard Briggs: I’m glad to be here.
Holly Robichaud: All right. So why did you file this, our resolution for term limits on Congress in Tennessee?
Sen. Richard Briggs: Well, this is something I’ve been concerned about for a number of years. I think if everything was working well in Congress, we were balancing budgets, the government seemed to be running smoothly, it appeared to be fair to the population, people were working together, we wouldn’t need to do this. But unfortunately that’s not what’s happening. Not only can’t we balance a budget, we can’t even pass a budget. So a lot of problems in Congress that we have, people have been there a long time. The longer that they’re there, the more entrenched they become, the more difficult it is for someone who’s new that wants to serve. The system is stacked against them. And I can just go through a whole host of reasons, but because of limiting times, it’s something that we need. Congress isn’t functioning the way we’re doing it now. We need to do something different.
Holly Robichaud: All right. What do you think the chances are in Tennessee for passing the resolution?
Sen. Richard Briggs: I think it’s pretty good. We’ve obviously polled the number of people that are on the committee that I chair, which is the state and local government, and that’s the committee this resolution will pass through. I think we have the votes there. We also have the votes I believe on the Senate floor. We always have to wait and see there because there’s more people that you have to survey to see how it’s doing. I’m very encouraged. I think there’s a very good chance we can get this passed.
Holly Robichaud: Great. So why did you first get involved with US Term Limits?
Sen. Richard Briggs: Well, it’s something that I’ve been interested in for quite a few years, I mean, at least 10 or 15 or maybe even longer, and US Term Limits has limited theirs, two term limits. There’s some other organizations out there that have a whole host of problems that they wish to address. And some of those are very good things that I agree with. But when you get too large like that, you have too large of an agenda, it’s just much tougher to get that through and get people to agree on things than it is to focus on one issue and then work on that issue and sell that issue.
Holly Robichaud: Well, we appreciate all your help. So what did Tennesseans think of the resolution and congressional term limits?
Sen. Richard Briggs: Well, just at least as your ordinary Tennesseans, and these are the people that were supposed to be serving, I’m sure that we would have somewhere between 80% and 90%, probably in the neighborhood of 85%, think we need to have term limits. “We like our congressman,” and many people say that, and my congressman by the way, he would still be within that six year limit, that limit that we’re talking about. And even on top of that, to reinforce it, my congressman is one of those that’s already filed a resolution to limit congressional term limits. And I’ve talked to him about this. He knows that Congress will never vote themselves out of office. We have to put the pressure on them. Then probably before we would even go to an Article V convention, Congress would go ahead and do something, they would grandfather themselves in, but they would allow it to be put as a referendum to the individual states to see if we can get this put in the Constitution going forward.
Holly Robichaud: All right. Now, how do people follow what you’re doing and get involved with you in Tennessee to help you get this resolution passed?
Sen. Richard Briggs: Well, we actually have a lot of people are interested in this, and what we really needed is an organization like US Term Limits where they have a place to rally. This would’ve been maybe difficult or maybe even impossible 30 years ago. There’s a lot of things I don’t like about social media, but one of the good things is it does allow people that have an interest, they do have an agenda, they have things that we need to get done, to come together and it’s something to rally around when we have an organization. We can pass the word through the different social media and we have an opportunity to get something done that’s just not been able to be done in the past
Holly Robichaud: All right. Well, thank you Senator for taking time outta your busy schedule. And thank you for all the work you’re doing on passing this resolution. We’re so glad you could join us today.
Sen. Richard Briggs: Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.
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Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The Term Limits Convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the Term Limits Movement. To check on the status of the Term Limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/take action. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a take action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators, urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching. That’s termlimits.com/take action. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution, or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US Term Limits. It’s our aim to hit the reset button on the US Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate, termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media @USTermLimits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
Speaker 7: USTL.