We start off the new year by reporting on yet another politician who’s been convicted of corruption by a federal jury with charges including racketeering, bribery, and extortion. Stay tuned to find out who. Hi, I’m Holly Robichaud and this is US Term Limits Breaking News. If you guessed Edward Burke of Chicago, you guessed correctly. Burke of Chicago was convicted of 14 charges of corruption over the course of his 54 years in office as an alderman. According to the trial, he would have developers hire his law firm in exchange for guiding their projects through the city’s red tape.
His defense? He just knew how the city operates and he offered this opportunity out of the goodness of his heart. Yet there’s evidence that he also applied pressure for a quid pro quo deal. But that’s meant to just be a coincidence. When he first joined the Chicago City Council, Sugar Sugar was the number one song in America and Joe Namath was a starting quarterback for the New York Jets. We need term limits so officials can change their tune and consistently we change the players on the roster. Term limits isn’t slowing down for 2024. In fact, we’re speeding up. We’ve already filed resolutions in Maine, South Carolina, Alaska, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.
And in South Dakota, Louisiana, and Utah, we’re getting ready to file as soon as the legislative sessions start. Representative Tony Gonzalez of Texas just became our latest co-sponsor of House Joint Resolution 11. Does the name sound familiar? If it does, it’s because last month we sponsored a series of billboards in Spanish and English, letting his constituents know he broke his promise to them and refused to get on the bill. Well, he’s made good on his word and is now one of our 103 representatives on our bill.
This proves our voter education program is a powerful motivator. I’m pleased to report that we’ve had another seven congressional candidates sign the US Term Limits Pledge. With record numbers of candidates signing our pledge for the 2024 election cycle, that number will increase even further and will be by election day our highest number ever. That’s right. Our highest number ever. We’re not only seeing a record number of congressional candidates sign our pledge, but we’re also seeing it at the state legislative level. All across the nation, candidates are seeing the popularity of supporting term limits has with voters. So they’re signing our pledge.
This past week, we saw an additional 16 2024 legislative candidates sign our pledge. We hope this number continues to surge. We recently interviewed Tennessee Senator Richard Briggs on the importance of term limits and how gridlock has an iron grip on Congress and it doesn’t allow for fresh ideas. Here are some of the clips from the interview. You can watch the full version on our YouTube channel at US Term Limits.
Is that we’ve got gridlock in Congress and things just aren’t happening in Congress. We can look even over the past 10 or 15 years. But recently, right when we have two wars going on, we have all of these problems, we have budgets that aren’t balanced we have a Congress that just is frozen and not doing anything. And there’s no saying that says if it’s don’t if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But it sure looks like the political system in Washington is broke. And so I think it needs to be fixed.
I think this is one case, whether you’re conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican or whatever you are, almost universally, the overwhelming majority of people believe that we need term limits and I think it’s just because, like we talked a little bit earlier, it’s because whatever we’re doing now isn’t working in Congress. They can’t pass budgets. They can’t balance budgets. We have wars going on and they’re arguing over things that are that sometimes are pretty trivial when there really is a country to run. And people want a Congress that’s really serving them. And when something’s broken, I think it needs to be fixed and we can bring in fresh blood, bring in enthusiasm.
And in some cases bringing in all the energy that goes with youth and new faces. And it gives those people a chance to work on some of the very, very serious problems that we’re facing. I’m very proud of our congressman in Knoxville, Congressman Tim Burchett. He spent years here in Nashville in the state legislature. He actually has a proposal before Congress dealing with term limits but Tim is very, very practical. I’ve talked to him about this and I know he’ll look at me sometimes. He says, “Well you know Briggsy, we’re not going to vote ourselves out of a job.” And that’s… He’s probably absolutely right. And he said probably the only way you could get Congress to act on this is to place term limits in Congress, but also grandfather in the members that are there already.
And I can’t say that this is the exact goal that we’re looking for. And even Congressman Burchett has said when Congress starts sensing the pressure, which is if they don’t do something, there’s gonna be a convention. And a lot of them are going to lose their jobs. Is it all of a sudden they’ll act? They’ll pass term limits. They’ll grandfather themselves in. And if we take the long term on this, we’ll be where we want to be on this. To get back to the question that you just asked about continuity and have expertise, whether we like it or not, the federal government is a huge bureaucracy.
You have career bureaucrats that sort of keep the trains running. That can be good and that can be bad. And I want to mention one other thing that we’ve not talked about at all that I think is a very important point. And it’s a concern I have really for the country. And that’s these lawmakers. And I’m not talking about either party, but lawmakers are really getting pretty old and in their 80s and sometimes even in their 90s. And I don’t know what the magic number is. But with the term limits, that’s going to be one way where we have some control over people that maybe have stayed past their prime in that they would term limit it out unless they were elected at a very old age to begin with. But most people are going to be elected in their 50s and 60s, particularly to the Senate. So even if they were there for a couple of terms, they might be in their 70s or early 80s. But you’re not going to have people there into their 90s, or like we had one US senator there not that long ago who was serving color up until he was 100.
Our North Carolina State Chair, Lee Brown, was featured on SiriusXM Stacy’s on the Right discussing the need for term limits and the hindrance of old age can have on legislation and Congress. Check it out.
But I certainly wanna see more of the detailed sort of way that we would go about it, particularly on congressional lawmakers. Tell me about that.
Well, just first of all, the main reason we’ve got to take a look at this is there is an inertia in the Congress. And it happens because why in the world would you do anything except continually run for office if you can stay in there forever? And we’re seeing this from this perpetual cycle of running. Now, when we look at what they’re getting done in the Congress, it’s minimal these days. In fact, just this year, I believe North Carolina’s legislature alone addressed around 300 bills while the Congress got to maybe 30. And that’s because why bother doing the work when you can stay there forever? Get all the perks, impose laws that you don’t yourself ever plan to abide by.
And it’s just got to change. And so where we’re approaching it is from a state by state level, because we know that the states themselves in this amazing republic that we live in can set the rules. And we’ve seen this happen in the past. We also know that the Congress doesn’t really want the states to tell them what to do. And so action can happen from the Congress to impose this on itself if they see enough motion coming from the states. And we’re seeing that motion take place state by state.
In Oregon’s 5th congressional district in the Democratic primary, a new poll conducted by RMG Research showed that Jamie McLeod-Skinner leads the Democratic race with 41% of the vote, with 44% of the Democrats still undecided. In that poll, 81% of Democratic voters support congressional term limits. When voters found out that Skinner supports congressional term limits, her support jumped to 51%. As you know, February 27th is National Term Limits Day. Be sure to mark your calendars. Why is this a special day for us? February 27th commemorates the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, which imposed term limits on the President of the United States. Ironically, it was designed to exclude incumbent President Harry S. Truman, who had been President since 1945 following the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Yet, Truman, as a supporter of term limits for both Congress and the President, limited himself and he decided not to run in 1952. Truman considered the fact that he had served most of Roosevelt’s fourth term and his own two terms.
If term limits is good enough for the President, then it’s good enough for Congress, don’t you think? We’ll be bringing you ideas on how to celebrate and commemorate National Term Limits Days in your community. Hey, you don’t have to wait until February 27th to show your term limits support. You can show your term limits spirit year-round by ordering Term Limits merchandise at termlimits.com/shop. There’s good news! You still have time to have your donation to US Term Limits doubled by a generous donor. From now until February 27th, every dollar will be matched. You donate $5, we get $10. You donate $50, we get $100. Your donations will fund our grassroots efforts, door knocking, phone calling campaigns to help pass term limits in at least 20 states this year. And if you’re interested, click on the link in this description.
How many more convicted politicians do we have to see before we pass congressional term limits? We have the momentum and it can become a reality, but we need your help. Please go to termlimits.org and get involved today. Be sure to sign up to volunteer in your state. And be sure to share this program, US Term Limits Breaking News, with your friends and family. This is Holly Robichaud for US Term Limits Breaking News. I’ll see you next week.