Category: Blog

Democracy can degrade into other things, even strong-man rule. To avoid such degradation, we have a ready prophylactic. Term limits. Which hamper would-be dictators-for-life, including entrenched oligarchs in the legislature. Many countries illustrate the point. But take Peru, where the new head of state, Martin Vizcarra, has been combatting political corruption by supporting a referendum to impose term limits and other reforms on Peru’s

Sounds like a joke but it’s actually true. In a recent No Uncertain Terms podcast, U.S. Term Limits’s Executive Director Nick Tomboulides and U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas referred to Americans’ ranking of Congress as somewhere in the vicinity of head lice and gonorrhea, respectively. Congressional favorability ratings rise and fall over time and

The following is a term limits discussion between Nicolas Tomboulides, Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits and J.R. Hoeft on his podcast. Listen to the episode in its entirety here: https://jrhoeft.com/2018/11/19/nick-tomboulides-u-s-term-limits/. Nick T.:                … getting legislatures who are actually closer to the people and have to appeal to voters. They can’t just rely on PAC money.

Isn’t it an obvious conflict of interest when politicians put a measure on the ballot to weaken or repeal their own term limits? In 2012, citizens of Kettering, Ohio, collected signatures to put an eight-year term limits measure on the ballot. It passed with more than 60% of the vote. In 2016, with a simple

What can one person do? I wish Jack Gargan were here to answer that question — I can almost hear his characteristic chuckle, see the glint in his Irish eyes, in preparation for his answer. But sadly, Jack passed away last week in Thailand, where he had retired. He was 88 years of age. The

“It is common to think of Latin America as the land of no hope for democracy. Since Independence, the region has been ravaged by authoritarianism and populism.” So writes Amherst College political science professor Javier Corrales in the New York Times on Nov. 6, in his op-ed “Can Latin American Democracy Withstand the Populist Assault?”