Speaker 1: I believe it now more than ever. We limit the president to two terms. It’s about time we limit the terms of congress.
Speaker 2: It’s far too easy for people to come to Washington and become career politicians and get corrupted by the system.
Speaker 3: Although times are changing, congressional seats aren’t. Once members are in office, in most cases, they can win re-election after re-election easily nine out of ten times.
Speaker 4: When the framers designed the constitution, they envisioned citizen legislators who would leave their job for a period of time, leave their businesses, their farms, come to Washington, serve the nation, and then go back.
Speaker 5: Welcome to No Uncertain Terms produced by US Term Limits. Your sanctuary for partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Not all the term limits action happens in Washington DC. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel, president of US Term Limits. Welcome to the No Uncertain Terms podcast for the week of August 20, 2018. In fact, most term limits action doesn’t happen in Washington DC. While we’re making progress there, Washington politicians have so far stymied citizen efforts to enact congressional term limits. But a different story can be told about our states and our municipalities. There, dozens of polities enact new term limits every election cycle. Try as they may, and they do, professional politicians and lobbyists have been unable to stop the tide.
Philip Blumel: US Term Limits tries to catalog all these efforts every other November. In 2016, over 40 term limits measures appear on the ballot across the country, both to enact new limits and to protect existing ones from attack by politicians. Every single one was successful. This is a record, but it’s not anomaly. In 2012, for instance, 90 term limits questions appeared on ballots across the country, and 97 percent of them were won by the good guys. What can we expect from 2018? In this week’s podcast, we’ll look at some of the term limits questions on the ballot this year. I’m joined by term limits activist, Staff. Hey, Austin.
Philip Blumel: So Austin, looking at all the campaigns we’re following this year, what seems to be to you the most important ones?
Staff: I think that being a Floridian I can’t help but stress a bias towards the school board term limits. It is great. More than 60% of the elections for school board term limits are just uncontested. There is a great article in the Economist, I think back in December Phil. It talked about the million dollar school board term limit race. In places in Colorado, I believe in Colorado Springs, in California. We’re actually seeing candidates raise up to a million dollars for a school board election, and it just seems, just unnecessary. That’s like a congressional race.
Philip Blumel: Right. I mean we’re definitely seeing that. Big money is coming into these races. The school board races have traditionally been very sleepy. In Florida, there’s an effort to term limit all of the school board members in the entire state to 8 years, and that question is going to be on the ballot in November. So voters will have the opportunity to term limit them.
Philip Blumel: It’s interesting, too, Austin, that in Florida, not just is their big money coming in from special interests, but also that the school board members themselves are paid. Truthfully, I didn’t really realize that until this issue came up here. That Florida is one of the only states that pay their school board members. Even really big districts like New York and Chicago and Houston and others, they have volunteer school board members, so they’re a lot less entrenched. They have a lot less of a need for that position. Lobbyists have a lot less sway over them. Although, the money’s coming and that influence will be real. So I think that this term limits effort is going to be an important one.
Staff: Yeah I mean, you envision a school board consisting of parents, maybe some teachers, people in the educational industry, but not someone looking to make a lifetime job for moderating a school board. Especially, that’s particularly up to the parents. This is education of children, it’s not a spreading our ideas to adults. It’s literally for kids to learn and grow, and the fact that people are just taking invested career into it is just somewhat shameful. But I think Arkansas also has a really important amendment coming up. It could be a story of redemption. Arkansas had term limits in their state legislature for years, since the early 90s. In 2014, state legislatures, who are in prison now by the way. One of them being Senator John Woods. Crafted an initiative that stated specifically how it was establishing term limits. The title said this.
Philip Blumel: They already had term limits.
Staff: Exactly. Sadly this is a case of trickery, and we wish the voters in this instance had known. Regardless, it was deceptive and it lengthened the term limits that were already in place, and now there’s been a ballot initiative approved on the ballot in November that would strengthen the term limits. Put a lifetime cap, and also prevent both members from serving communitively in either chamber, where you can only serve up to 10 years in both chambers. As opposed to serving out the full term limits in either chamber.
Philip Blumel: Arkansas has really had a crazy history with this issue of term limits. I mean, they were one of the first states that passed term limits on their state legislature. The politicians counter attacked, I guess you could say, in 2004, with a measure they put on the ballot to try to weaken the term limits that the voters had put on the ballot back in 1992. In 2004, all these special interest lined up and wrote checks, and there’s this big campaign to weaken the term limits. Of course the lobbyist greatly outspent the citizens on this, but ultimately the citizens had the choice in their hands and they voted it down soundly.
Philip Blumel: With that lesson in hand, when the politicians came back in 2014 to try to weaken them again, they, like you said, they used deceptive language. Because they knew they had to fool the voters. The voters love term limits. They’ve proved it at the ballot box twice already. So they couldn’t be straight forward. That’s pretty typical when you run into these ballot measures from politicians. Not only were they deceptive, suggesting that the measure in 2014 would create term limits when they already existed. Even that was tucked into it, what they called an ethics package, which was full of all these different items that were all got top billing.
Philip Blumel: The term limits thing was stuck in the middle and it said it created term limits. We couldn’t get the word out, and when I say we I mean the term limits movement, couldn’t get the word out in time to really let people know about this deception until it was too late. The Arkansas Gazette labeled the whole fiasco the outrage of the year, which it really was.
Philip Blumel: If 60% of Florida voters give their approval on November 6th, school board members across the state will be limited to eight years in office. Just like the governor, cabinet and state legislature. No one played a larger role in giving voters this opportunity then our next guest, Erica Donald. Donald is a former Collier County school board member, who served on the Constitutional Revision Commission, and was a sponsor of Amendment 8 through that process.
Philip Blumel: Hi ya doing Erica?
Erika Donald: I’m doing great, and it feels good to hear you say that that’s a possibility. I’m very excited.
Philip Blumel: Amendment 8 is actually amalgam of three different measures that was considered by the CRC. Are you happy with the final result?
Erika Donald: I am. I was actually the sponsor of two of the proposals that made it into Amendment 8, the term limits proposal, as well as the proposal that will allow the legislature to create public schools outside of local school districts. I think both of those are really good for the future of Florida. Certainly term limits is very exciting, and I’m really happy that it’s going to go to the voters in November.
Philip Blumel: And the third one is regarding civics education.
Erika Donald: That’s right. It basically makes a value statement that the people of Florida want to prioritize civics education in our public schools.
Philip Blumel: Okay, and why were these three put together?
Erika Donald: Well, the Constitution Revision Commission actually passed 24 proposals, and we consolidated those by topic, down to eight proposals which will go on the ballot. These were all three of the K-12 education related proposals that were passed out of the 24.
Philip Blumel: Okay. So this is the education amendment that came out of the CRC?
Erika Donald: That’s right.
Philip Blumel: Okay. Now, you’re a school board member. Are you still? I wasn’t sure.
Erika Donald: I am. Until November, I am.
Philip Blumel: Oh okay.
Erika Donald: I am self term limited in November.
Philip Blumel: Okay, great. Well we’re going to miss you I’m sure. As a school board member yourself, why do you think this amendment is so important?
Erika Donald: Well, definitely having seen the belly of the beast as a member of my local school board. I came from the private sector, I’m a CPA, I’ve been in financial services and of course I’m a mom to three children. Got involved with the school district because I felt like the people on the board at the time, none of whom had school age children, were really out of touch with what I was seeing going on as a parent.
Erika Donald: I got on the school board and started meeting other school board members from around the state, going to conferences and what not. Found out that our school board was not much different than others. A lot of people have been on these school boards a long time. They’re very loyal to the system, as opposed to being loyal to the people who elected them. I found that to be a very pervasive culture amongst school board members across the state. I thought, “Absolutely, we need to find a way to term limit these individual so we get fresh faces and people who remember who voted for them and who put them into office, and who they’re supposed to be serving.”
Philip Blumel: Right. One thing I learned into looking into Amendment 8 and watching this process that I didn’t know, is that school board members in Florida are paid, whereas in most states they’re not. What do you think that does to incentives in our school board system in Florida?
Erika Donald: Well it absolutely makes people stay longer than they should. There’s also an incentive to stay when you’re talking about a person’s pension, because that’s also included. They not only get a full-time salary, they also get benefits and pension. So, an individual whose time should be up on the school board may stick around because one, they make depends on that salary. But they also, they want to continue to pay into a pension, and have the district pay into the pension and hold onto those medical benefits as well. It’s definitely not serving the people of Florida. I actually tried to get rid of the school board member salaries to put Florida in line with the rest of the country. That didn’t make it onto the ballot, but I think it’s an effort we need to continue to work on.
Philip Blumel: Okay. I saw a poll back in June that was looking only at the term limits portion of the amendment, and it showed that over 60% of voters approved the idea of eight year school board term limits as a stand-alone. In fact, I think it was the most popular of all the measures that were under the consideration of the CRC at the time. Have you seen any more recently polling?
Erika Donald: Yes, the Florida Chamber did another poll that actually polled the entire title of full ballot measure, and that had 75% support.
Philip Blumel: Oh, excellent.
Erika Donald: That was, I believe in July. Definitely term limits all over the country is enjoying that 70, to 80, to 90 percent in some cases, support. That’s what we’re hearing all over the state. You also hear all of our ups ballot, like Rick Scott running for Senate and others, talking about term limits is the hot topic right now. It’s the perfect time for voters to term limit their school board members.
Philip Blumel: Right. I’d love to hear how an effort like this is affecting the up-ticket races. I think that’s really true. I think even when things happen like this is in the states, it makes a difference even in Washington, because politicians in Washington know what’s going on in the states. They’re going to see successes like this and it’s going to inform them, and they need that information. Now, what kind of opposition has emerged to this amendment?
Erika Donald: Well, not to our surprise, all of the School Board Association have come out against the amendment. They try to say it’s because of the other measures, but we know that their primary opposition is because of their position and not wanting to ooze out on their evergreen incumbency …
Philip Blumel: Of course.
Erika Donald: … And their salary and benefits. Certainly the school board members themselves do not want to be term limited. Surprise, Surprise. As do all the politicians.
Philip Blumel: Right. Much like congressman don’t want congressional term limits, and most state legislators, not all of them, but most state legislators don’t want state legislative term limits. It’s quite natural that most school board members would not want to be term limited either. Although, you are a school board members, and I know there’s other school board members that support the measure.
Erika Donald: Absolutely, in fact, our political action committee, 8isgreat.org, was formed by myself and two other school board members in Florida. Shawn Frost in Indian River County, and Scott Shine in Duval County. We thought that that was a strong statement as well, that we as private citizens who are serving on the school board as a public service believe in school board term limits. Enough so that we’re going to put our name on it and be out there helping to get this passe.
Philip Blumel: Right. There was a move to have the amendment stricken from the ballot. Is that still ongoing?
Erika Donald: Yes, the League of Women voters have filed a lawsuit. In fact, there was a hearing this morning in Tallahassee Florida about that. The judge did not make a determination today. The primary argument is about the public school establishment by the state, the other part of the amendment, not necessarily the term limits part. We hope to prevail on that. The state is defending the proposal …
Philip Blumel: Right.
Erika Donald: … Because it was put on by the Constitutional Revision Commission. That’s obviously going to go all the way to the Supreme Court in pretty short order, and we’ll see if the voters get to decide on this. I hope so. I’m very positive because we hired the best constitutional attorneys on the CRC to craft this amendment to avoid getting thrown out. We knew these lawsuits would be coming, but we’ll have to see what the courts do.
Philip Blumel: Okay. One last thing. Besides voting yes on Amendment 8 in November, how can citizens help in seeing this pass?
Erika Donald: Well thanks for asking that. They can 8isgreat.org, and they can volunteer. They can certainly donate, that’s extremely helpful. We’re going to be running a robust digital campaign across the state, and also grassroots campaign; knocking doors. So anyone who would like to get involved in that effort, please find us on 8isgreat.org. Pledge your support. Make a donation, and signup to be a part of our grassroots movement.
Philip Blumel: Great. 8isgreat.org. Alright, thank you very much Erika for spending this time with us.
Erika Donald: Thanks for having me.
Nick Tomboulides: Hail to the queen, Queen Corrine. That title once belonged to congress woman Corrine Brown before she was dethroned by her own corruption. In January, Brown, a former 12-term congresswoman, began her new term in prison. After 24 years in federal office, Brown is now a federal inmate. Prisoner number 67315-018. Sadly, a conviction is often the only term limit members of congress have. Brown, who served in elected office continuously for 35 years, was convicted on 18 federal fraud charges. At the center of her crimes was a false charity she created called, One Door for Education, which was intended to provide scholarships to underprivileged kids.
Nick Tomboulides: Instead, One Door became a passthrough to lavish the congresswoman with private jet rides, luxury boxes at NFL games, Beyonce concert parties, high-end shopping sprees, and sometimes direct ATM cash. Federal prosecutors showed that One Door took in over $800,000 from donors between 2012 and 2016, while only paying out one measly scholarship for $1,200. Brown was ultimately convicted on wire fraud, mail fraud, engaging in a scheme to hide facts, corruptly obstructing tax laws, and filing false income tax returns for several years.
Nick Tomboulides: While committing these crimes, she continued to run for congress on the slogan of, “Corrine Delivers,” and she’d be re-elected with between 60 and 70 percent of the vote. Her incumbency was so powerful that she’d often run unopposed. Even while under indictment, Brown almost won her 2016 primary, taking in 39% of the vote. Unsurprisingly, Brown voted against congressional term limits whenever she had the chance. As she sits in prison, we have to ask ourselves some big questions.
Nick Tomboulides: How much longer are we going to put up with this? How much longer are we going to let career politicians tout their wisdom while failing to solve any problems. And how much longer are we going to let them tout their public service while building corruption empires behind the scenes? Congress shouldn’t get away with this for another minute. And do you think this type of corruption is only prevalent at the federal level? Hardly. At the same time Queen Corrine was getting fit for orange jumpsuit, Hallandale Beach Mayor, Joy cooper, was arrested in an FBI sting for sneaking $8,000 bribes in a Dunkin donuts bag.
Nick Tomboulides: Cooper had been in office for 18 years. When people are handed too much power for too long, odds are they’re going to stop serving the public and start abusing those positions for personal gain. We’re lying to ourselves if we say, “Any office, no matter how big or small, is immune.” As a result, trust in government is eroding. If we want to restore it, we have to insist on term limits for all politicians.
Nick Tomboulides: Here in Florida we’ve passed eight year term limits on our governor, our cabinet, our legislature, and countless local positions. Millions of voters initiated and approved these laws with bipartisan support. Why then do we still allow members of congress to serve for life? According to the data, congress has worse turnover than the Soviet Politburo. In 2016, incumbence had a 98% re-election rate. Many of them ran unopposed, meaning voters who didn’t even like their incumbence had no way to ditch them.
Nick Tomboulides: Spending in elections has also gone up, with millions of dollars flowing into most races. Contributions roll in, favors come out. That’s the circle of life, and it creates opportunity for double dealing. Here at US Term Limits, we are tired of it. We’re tired of self-serving politicians who promise you one thing and do another. We’re not going to tolerate this corruption any longer and neither should you. I’m Nick Tomboulides.
Staff: Arkansas is really going through an interesting time in the state legislature, I believe there’s about five to six members who are indicted. Waiting for prison time, or waiting for a sentence, and are currently locked up.
Philip Blumel: Another one that’s interesting that caught my eye is in Illinois. We’ve all heard about the Chicago machine and the administration of Mayor Richard Daley that went on for something like 25 years. And resulted in quite a few indictments and prison sentences for corrupt folks in that administration. Chicago, in fact Illinois, really is a poster child for this reform. But on the ballot in November, it looks like that the former governor, Pat Quinn and his effort, has been successful in putting on a measure on the ballot that would impose eight year term limits on the Mayor of Chicago.
Staff: Yeah, I think one thing that attests to this really well in just how non-partisan term limits really are. It speaks to the truth, is that, Pat Quinn’s the democrat Mayor, I mean the governor, excuse me. And Rahm Emanuel’s democrat, I believe he’s Chief of Staff for President Barrack Obama. They’re going up against each other in the sense. It’s nothing to do with a conservatives against the liberals or something. This is just strictly a good government reform. It’s not effected by a party issue or an ideology, it’s just a necessary reform.
Philip Blumel: For more information on that effort, you can go to, takechargechicago.org. I’m sure that former governor Quinn can appreciate your help in getting that passed. Quinn by the way has been a long time champion of term limits, and also of other good government type reforms. This is not that far of a field for him. He actually came into office on the tail of the impeachment and indictment and removal from office of Rod Blagojevich, the former corrupt governor of that state. So we got some action in Illinois.
Stacey Selleck: Hi, this is Stacey Selleck, Digital Director for US Term Limits, and I have a pop quiz for you. Do you know who holds the record for longest time in Congress? I’ll give you a few hints. He was a US house rep. He’s from the Midwest. He served under seven presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barrack Obama. He served more than 59 years. That’s 30 terms in office. He retired in 2015 at the age of 87. He’s still alive now at 92. He was preceded by his father who served 22 years. Then, his wife succeeded him and still holds office today.
Stacey Selleck: He actually beat Senator Byrd from West Virginia’s record. It’s not Strom Thurmond. This guy beat him by 12 years. If you said John Conyers you’re getting closer, geographically speaking. Ready for the answer? It’s John Dingell Jr. of Michigan. Former President Clinton once quipped when Dingell celebrated his 50 years in Congress, “President’s come and go, John Dingell goes on forever.” Dingell himself said when he retired in 2015, “I’m not going to be carried out feet first. I don’t want people to say I stayed here too long.”
Stacey Selleck: Well, he currently holds the record, and his wife currently occupies the office. Debbie Dingell succeeded him. This means that the southeastern Michigan area has been represented by a Dingell since 1933. That’s 85 years. Tell me only Dingell’s could do the job. Is Congress a political dynasty for oligarch families? No one should hold office this long. Get involved. Volunteer for US Term Limits and help put an end to the concept of lifelong politicians. Go to termlimits.com/volunteer. Thank you very much for your continued support.
Philip Blumel: We mentioned about the dishonest tactics used by the politicians in Arkansas. A very high percentage of the time, when term limits don’t win at the ballot box, it’s because of the language that politicians use to try to deceive voters into voting against their own interest. That is to say, in Arkansas, they knew that voters were for it. So they had to somehow convince voters that they were voting for term limits when they’re really voting against term limits. Like I said, it’s not uncommon. We see this at the local level all the time.
Philip Blumel: In fact, one of our favorite cases here in Florida is in Palm Beach Gardens. In this small municipality just north of West Palm Beach in Palm Beach County, the majority of the city council there tried to put a measure on the ballot back in march that would weaken their term limits there. Well, the voters of Palm Beach Gardens, just put term limits on their council in 2014 with an 80% of the vote.
Philip Blumel: Now, how in the world could this council majority think that the voters had 80% of voters that changed their mind with something that they had just passed in 2014, and here it is. Well this was, yeah, earlier this year, that they had changed their mind and they could put a measure on the ballot to weaken them. Well, they know they couldn’t. They could not. At least they couldn’t do it if they were going to be honest. So what they did was, they created a ballot question that, again just like in Arkansas, made it sound like a yes vote would establish term limits in their municipality, when really it weakened them. The term limit supporters brought them to court, and the court sided on the side of the term limits supporters and threw the measure off the ballot.
Staff: It’s not even if there’s a citizen initiative behind this trying to lengthen them. It’s just the self interest that the politician’s doing.
Philip Blumel: Bottom line of all this, is that there’s going to be term limits on the ballot again in November, 2018, and in most cases, term limits are going to win. The people of Term Limits, we know it from polling and everywhere else and it’ll be proven at the ballot box again as it has been over the last several cycles. When we talk about term limits, the first thing we think of is often Washington, D.C. and Congress. Indeed, that is the big prize, but it’s not the only one. It’s a help at the congressional level for you to get involved in your local term limits efforts.
Staff: Everyone’s on your side except the politicians themselves.
Philip Blumel: We will be back to report to you on the re-election results after November, and I expect what we’ve seen in the past and that term limits will be triumphed again.
Philip Blumel: This podcast wouldn’t be possible without the support of you, the American people, and your voluntary financial contributions which can be made through our website at, termlimits.com.
(end podcast)
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links :
“The War I Survived” written by Brock, Davey, Neville-Neil as performed by Hawkwind, “N.W.O” written by Al Jourgenson as performed by Ministry, “God Save The Queen (Symphony)” as originally released on the Sex Pistols – Great Rock N Roll Swindle album, “Corruption” written by Cragin/Kisrt/Pop as performed by Iggy Pop
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Duke Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)