Philip Blumel: Now we know why Henry Cuellar opposed Term Limits so adamantly. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits movement, published on May 6th, 2024. This is episode number 237.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Okay, the headline reads, Texas Representative Henry Cuellar and Wife Imelda Indicted on Bribery Charges. And so it is that long-time Term Limits opponent, Representative Henry Cuellar, faces Department of Justice charges that he took bribes, laundered money, and used his office to influence US policy for Azerbaijan, and also in favor of Mexican bank. His wife Imelda was also indicted. According to the indictment, from 2014 to 2021, the Cuellars accepted $600,000 in bribes from a Mexican bank and separately from an Azerbaijani oil and gas company. It sounds like someone had found his gravy train and didn’t want to get off. Truly, what would be the appeal of a reform like Term Limits that limits one’s tenure, increases transparency, and discourages corruption to someone like this representative? The Department of Justice claims, “The bribe payments were allegedly laundered pursuant to sham consulting contracts through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imeldas Cuellar, who performed little to no legitimate work under the contracts.
Philip Blumel: In exchange for the bribes paid by the Azerbaijani oil and gas company, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to use his office to influence US foreign policy in favor of Azerbaijan. The Department of Justice continued, In exchange for the bribes paid by the Mexican bank, Congressman Cuellar allegedly agreed to influence legislative activity and to advise and pressure high-ranking US executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to the bank. The career politician Cuellar has been in Congress since 2005, and before that, he spent a brief stint as the Secretary of State of Texas after serving in the Texas Legislature since 1987. The 37-year political veteran and his wife are each indicted on two counts of violating the ban on public officials acting as agents of a foreign principle, two counts of bribery of a federal official, one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering, five counts of money laundering, and wire fraud. Yes, conviction of all these crimes would mean a long, long prison sentence, possibly decades.
Philip Blumel: Now, Representative Cuellar’s response to his indictment is interesting. Let me be clear, he said. I’m running for re-election and will win this November. Hey, if history is any indication, he might be right. Don’t forget about US Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. As we have reported on this podcast, Menendez was first indicted on corruption charges very similar to Henry Cuellar’s back in 2015, and yet held his seat decisively in the 2018 elections. Such is the power of an incumbent member of Congress in our current system. Over 90% of the time, candidates for Congress with the most money wins. Over 90% of special interest donations go to incumbents. Now, although Menendez was acquitted, the Department of Justice came back with a battery of new indictments in 2023. Less than a year ago, over Senator Menendez and his wife’s alleged accepting of bribes including cash, gold bars, luxury cars, etc. He is accused of acting illegally as an agent of Egypt. Similar story. Senator Menendez is not participating in the Democratic primary for the 2024 elections, however, but he is telling the press that he might run as an independent.
Philip Blumel: Like Cuellar, Menendez also is a term limits opponent who has been in politics for over 37 years and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming away from the trough. So, sure, Cuellar can be forgiven for some confidence. He isn’t even facing any opposition in this year’s Democratic primary for his seat, even though the raid on his offices by federal agents occurred in January of 2022. Even with the cloud of imminent arrest hanging over him, challengers were deterred by the awesome power of incumbency. As a result, Henry Cuellar is assured of being the Democratic nominee in this safe blue district. Now, in addition to being corrupt, Representative Cuellar has also been an active opponent of term limits. Oh, or do I repeat myself? Let’s discuss that history after this brief PSA.
Stacey Selleck: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: David Brog, Nevada State Chair for US Term Limits and candidate for Nevada State Legislature, discusses one of the most important concerns of voters he talks to while on the campaign trail, professional politicians. And importantly, he offers a solution.
David Brog: I’m going to people’s doors and literally asking, what’s on your mind? What can I do for you? What’s important to you? So of course you’re gonna hear about the economy. You’re gonna hear about crime. But I’m surprised at how often I hear about term limits directly or term limits indirectly, and that people complain about the career of politicians. They complain about the fact that politicians only seem interested in re-election. They complain about money and politics. And in each case, I bring it back to term limits. And I let them know very proudly, I am the Nevada State Chair, and if we implement term limits, the problems you’re complaining about are gonna be solved. And it’s interesting. A lot of people never thought about it, but they realize this is the answer. If you’re worried about this careerism, you’re worried about politicians always seem to put some donor or some lobbyist, the head of their constituents, you worry about those issues, there’s really only one solution. That’s term limits. Now we have term limits in our state legislature, but what they’re interested in solving and what’s really on their minds very often is Congress.
Philip Blumel: Henry Cuellar has always opposed term limits and this opposition came back to bite him in the 2022 Democratic primary. In that race, he faced progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, who threw down the gauntlet by signing the US term limits congressional pledge. This occurred in the context of the first FBI raid of Cuellar’s offices. At the time, Cuellar lied saying that he wasn’t the focus of the federal investigation. As it had in the past, US term limits had asked Representative Cuellar to sign the USTL congressional pledge as Jessica Cisneros had done. This pledge commits the signer to “co-sponsor and vote for the US term limits Amendment of six years on the US House and 12 years in the US Senate and no longer limit. Once again, he refused. A series of billboards went up in his district alerting voters that Representative Henry Cuellar refused to sign the US term limits pledge. An ad started running on local radio, sponsored by the term limits super PAC. Let’s hear one.
Speaker 4: Career politicians have turned our world upside down and we pay the price. 84% of district voters support term limits for Congress, yet Henry Cuellar still refuses to sign the term limits pledge. Term limits super PAC is responsible for the content of this advertising.
Philip Blumel: Polling was published by Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research that 84% of likely Democratic Party voters in Texas District 28, that’s Laredo area, favor congressional term limits, with 74% specifically preferring a six year limit for members of the US House to longer terms. Although Cuellar ultimately won, the primary challenge was remarkably close and showed the power of the term limits issue, as well as obviously the power of entrenched incumbency. But it must be noted it took intervention by the national Democratic leadership who came to Cuellar’s assistance when they saw he was in trouble. Come election day in May 2022, Cuellar only beat his challenger by 177 votes. But he did win. Well, sure he did. He’s an incumbent. Incumbents win. To put a fine point on it, incumbents win well over 90% of the time in the US Congress. Sometimes they win 100% of the time.
Philip Blumel: As in 2022, when 100% of incumbent US senators running for their own seat won re-election. 100%. It’s not unusual for long-term incumbents to be corrupt, as corruption is highly correlated to tenure. But it is also not unusual for incumbents indicted for corruption to get re-elected until they’re finally convicted and then carted off forcefully. To break this grip of incumbent politicians, which pretty much makes most congressional elections merely perfunctory, we need term limits. Term limits will not only discourage corruption, but will make elections competitive again.
Philip Blumel: There is no reform that can revigorate our democracy like term limits will. That’s our contention at US Term Limits. But not everyone agrees. Obviously Representative Cuellar and Senator Menendez don’t. Anti-Term Limits politicians like these will tell you that the Congress will lose valuable institutional knowledge if we kick experienced legislators like them out of Congress. But there’s more than one kind of institutional knowledge for these two. And let’s face it, this doesn’t apply just to the crooks. Long tenure provides the knowledge of how to exploit the institution of Congress for personal gain, political and financial. In Cuellar’s case, he made connections with Mexican bankers and Azerbaijani officials. He became the chair of the Congressional Azerbaijani Caucus, no joke. Now let’s go back to the indictment. The bribe payments were allegedly laundered, pursuant to sham consulting contracts, through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar who performed no legitimate work under the contracts. Now, did he come to Congress with these contacts? Did he come to Congress with this knowledge? This crooked behavior was not the handiwork of a rookie.
Philip Blumel: It was a sophisticated scheme that only a highly influential and senior Congress member could pull off. At some point between 2004, when he was first elected to Congress, and today, Cuellar decided to transform his Congressional office into his own personal ATM machine. Now, you might be thinking, sure, but yeah, Cuellar is a crook. Most legislators are gaining valuable knowledge to enable them to serve the country better, right? Um, no. According to peer-reviewed research, the average member of Congress spends more time raising money for his next campaign than actually learning and doing his job. CBS’s 60 Minutes has reported that members spend up to five hours per day on the phone begging donors for cash, much of which they send back to their political party in exchange for committee assignments. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle estimates that members spend, “two-thirds” of their time fundraising. Now, I don’t think that this can be put any better than by our own Nick Tomboulides, Executive Director of US term limits. Last year in an op-ed he wrote, “despite what opponents of term limits claim, there’s no folksy school house rock style democracy on Capitol Hill. Members are not carefully studying 2000 page bills and becoming policy experts. They’re raking in cash and doling out favors all to protect their beloved political careers.”
Philip Blumel: Or, in my words, politicians do politics. Not fair? Hey, we have a careerist Congress of long-term incumbents who must have amassed quite a treasure chest of institutional knowledge. And yet these institutional encyclopedias have done a miserable job contributing only partisanship and venom to our country, while nearly every major problem goes unsolved. Only about 10% of Americans say they have confidence in Congress. And despite all its knowledge and all its experience, Congress hasn’t passed a budget legally and on time in 30 years. So I’ve beat up on two Democrats today, Representative Cuellar and Senator Menendez. So let’s give the last words in this episode to Representative Jared Golden, a pro-term limits Democrat from Maine.
Rep. Jared Golden: I think sometimes institutional knowledge can actually be a bad thing. So we have a professional core of politicians right now, and just the institution itself. Let’s look at a debate like what’s going on right now over the debt ceiling, raising the debt ceiling so we can continue to meet our obligations that we owe. It’s about the creditworthiness of the country and also our budget. And there’s a whole institutional knowledge based upon years of learned experiences and battles past fought about how to go about winning, right? And what’s winning? The Dems beat the Republicans, or the Republicans beat the Dems. There’s all kinds of institutional knowledge about how to posture and jockey in position in order to get the big win, crush the other side. Very little conversation about what’s in the best interest of the country.
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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/takeaction. 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’re watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the Term Limits Convention resolution, or the bill has not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US Term Limits. It is 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 at US Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now, LinkedIn.
Philip Blumel: USTL.