Philip Blumel: Term Limits in the 2024 elections. Hi, my name is Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms. The official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode number 251 published on November 15th, 2024.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from Partisan Politics.
Philip Blumel: By now you surely have heard about November 5th’s landslide election. Yes, that’s right. The Term Limits movement won across the country. As you know we ask candidates for the US Congress to sign a pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the US Term Limits amendment which is introduced every session in the US House and the US Senate. Well, the results are in. In the 119th House to be seated in 2025, we will have 125 signers seated. Please consider we only had 96 in the 118th house. This is a new record. And in the 119th US Senate, we will have 23 pledge signers seated. We had 19 signers in the 118th US Senate. So over 27% of the US Congress has now committed to congressional Term Limits. That’s great. Now, of course, we at US Term Limits know full well that the US Congress will not approve the US Term Limits amendment. At least not without enormous pressure.
Philip Blumel: So we take even more satisfaction in the election day success that we had at the state level. So far, eight states have officially applied for an amendment proposing convention under Article V of the US Constitution limited to the subject of Congressional Term Limits. Three states approved this application just this year. Now, this is the lever we believe will force Congress to act. And our state level pledge which we send to all candidates for state legislatures across the country had a banner day on November 5th. This pledge commits signers to co-sponsor, vote for, and defend calls for the Term Limits Convention. Well, we’ve been bragging on this podcast about the record breaking number of signers on the state level pledge throughout 2024. But now, the real results are in. There will be 1240 US Term Limits pledge signers seated in state legislatures in 2025. That’s 1240. Compare this to 932 in 2022. Compare this to 647 in 2020. So don’t tell me Congressional Term Limits are a great idea but it’s never gonna happen. It is happening.
Philip Blumel: Well, that’s the big picture. But there’s a lot of other signs across the country that real change is afoot. In Ohio, US Term Limits state chair and businessman Bernie Moreno defeated incumbent US Senator Sherrod Brown to become the next US senator of the state of Ohio. That’s right. More than a pledge signer, a senator like Moreno is a Term Limits activist. With his election we’re in a better position to force a vote on the Congressional Term Limits amendment in his state. Oh yeah, and it should be pointed out that the sponsor of the amendment Ted Cruz of Texas also handily won his reelection in spite of enormous spending to defeat him. This was the most expensive US Senate election ever, and Senator Cruz won by nine points. More evidence of momentum can be found in Indiana where Term Limits won a trifecta. In 2024 the State House in Indiana approved the Term Limits convention but the resolution lost in the Senate in that state. Indiana is a battleground state for the Term Limits movement.
Philip Blumel: So you can see the importance of new leadership in the Indiana Capitol. Well, first, US Term Limits state chair Micah Beckwith was elected Lieutenant Governor of Indiana on November 5th. Yep. Second former US Senator Mike Brown was elected the new governor of Indiana. Now remember while he was in Congress he was a US Term Limits pledge signer and a reliable sponsor of the US Term Limits Amendment. Governor Elect Brown even mentioned Term Limits in his acceptance speech. Listen.
Mike Brown: Do you think I believe in Term Limits? Yes, I do.
Mike Brown: Everybody campaigns on it and then they have amnesia once they get there.
Philip Blumel: All right. Third, Indiana State rep Dave Hall who was the chief sponsor of the Term Limits convention resolution in the Indiana State House won reelection in the most tightly contested election in the state. Indiana here we come. In Utah, the US Term Limits State Chair Tina Cannon was elected to the state auditor in Utah. Are you sensing a pattern here? Wait I’m not done. Former US Term Limits South Dakota State Chair Taffy Howard won a seat in the state Senate in South Dakota. This is particularly important because South Dakota has not yet voted for the Term Limits convention but is on our shortlist.
Speaker 4: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: Perhaps you heard that Donald Trump decisively won the presidential election on November 5th. What you might not have heard is that Trump signaled that congressional Term Limits might be on his second term agenda. Well, frankly, this is news to us too. Trump on the campaign trail in 2016 promised to push for Congressional Term Limits. No doubt. We made a big deal of it on this podcast, as both then President Obama and candidate Donald Trump were both advocating Term Limits. But when Trump’s first administration came and went without any follow through, we were disappointed and moved on. Trump didn’t make much noise about Term Limits during the 2024 campaign but after his election a video surfaced that Trump had posted a year or two ago on the Truth Social social media platform. In this video, Trump lays out several ways in which he plans to “dismantle the deep state” in his second term. This list included promises to immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats, to clean out all the corrupt actors in the national security and intelligence apparatus et cetera. But naturally, our attention was drawn to the final action on his to-do list.
Donald Trump: Here’s my plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all, and corruption it is. First I will immediately reissue taking place all the time like with big Pharma. Finally, I will push a constitutional amendment to oppose Term Limits on members of Congress. This is how I will shatter the deep state and restore government that is controlled by the people and for the people. Thank you very much.
Philip Blumel: Next, at the local level we were tracking Term Limits initiatives across the country and as usual most one handedly. That is new Term Limits were enacted and referenda to weaken them were defeated. No news there. Term Limits continue to roll out across America. One example worth featuring however is the result in McKinney Texas, the subject of episode 247 of this podcast. Recall that in McKinney Texas, City council members were and are limited to two terms or eight years in office. The most common time-tested term limit in the United States. But council members, particularly the mayor, wanted to stay longer. So they put a proposition on the November ballot to weaken the Term Limit to 12 years. The problem for them was that the voters in McKinney like everywhere else, love Term Limits and the council members know it full well. So, if they simply put a measure on the ballot that stated it would weaken the existing Term Limits from eight to 12 years, voters would reject it.
Philip Blumel: To get around this pesky little issue the McKinney Council created deceptive ballot language to try to fool pro Term Limits voters into voting for the anti-Term Limits measure. This is standing operating procedure for crooked politicians. The ballot measure made no mention that McKinney already had Term Limits nor that by voting yes they were restarting the clock to give the Term Limited politicians an additional 12 years on top of the eight they’ve already served. Well, this trick can work if no one steps up to expose the scam. But fortunately, someone did. Local activists including Tom McCarron, Jett Wallace, and others stepped up to the plate. US Term Limits deserve some credit too, as we assisted with some text messages reminding voters that McKinney already has Term Limits. Well, I predicted in that podcast that the scam would fail and it did. The margin was close though, which shows the efforts of the activists made the difference. Enough voters got the word in time.
Philip Blumel: Now, contrast this battle with the corrupt politicians and McKinney with some more honest but no less self-interested politicians in the Space Coast city of Melbourne, Florida. The politicians there put a referendum on the ballot to weaken Term Limits from eight to 12 years. But it admitted that that’s what it was doing. Well, it got clobbered. No campaign was needed to defeat it. So, bottom line, what do we learn from the 2024 election? Well, the lesson I take from it is that the Term Limits movement has a strategy, an effective team, and momentum. When we act, we win. Last, let’s remind ourselves why Term Limits are so important. For all the talk of change, the vast majority of politicians that govern the United States in 2024 will be governing the United States in 2025 as well. Ballotpedia is collecting the data for a comprehensive report to demonstrate this but as a teaser, they dropped this bombshell last week.
Philip Blumel: “Thus far 85, that’s 1.8%, of state legislative incumbents have been defeated. Out of 4,678”. 1.8% of incumbents were defeated. In the accompanying chart, they suggest that 2024 might have hit the record low. The trend has been moving steadily down since Ballotpedia has been keeping track. Now, the authors of our constitution recognize the importance of rotation in office, and we don’t have that. We’ve got a lot of work to do but as the 2024 election results suggest, we can do it.
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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 are 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’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 at US Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.