Nick Tomboulides: Hi, I’m Nick Tomboulides, Executive Director of US Term Limits. Welcome to the No Uncertain Terms podcast for October 8th, 2018.
Philip Blumel: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Nick Tomboulides: Senate hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh have captured the nation’s attention. Senators from both parties have maximized their microphone time. There’s no doubt about that. Politicians in Washington are growing fat and happy as our country grows more divided. Isn’t there something wrong with this picture? Shouldn’t we feel proud of our leaders when they represent us instead of embarrassed? On this episode, we’ll analyze the hearing and update you on some citizen term limits activism going on in Texas. You will not believe what the politicians are up to in the Lone Star State. I’m joined by US Term Limits Grassroots Director Austin, how are you doing?
Nick Tomboulides: I’m doing very well, sir. How are you doing today?
Nick Tomboulides: Doing good. We have a very, very hot topic today and that is the Supreme Court hearings of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Now, I don’t know whether you’re Republican, Democrat, doesn’t matter. Everyone I talked to who listened to these hearings had one piece of crucial feedback and that was, we need term limits for members of Congress.
Staff: Yeah. I mean, it’s past time. Especially, you want to look at the people who are the Senate Judiciary Committee members themselves, Patrick Leahy, he’s a ranking member. You know, this is the vacancy of Anthony Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court. And he came to the Supreme Court in the late 80s. Leahy’s been in office since ’75, so he’s overseen multiple Supreme Court Justices tenures come and go, as a US senator.
Nick Tomboulides: Actually five of them. That was one thing Senator Leahy bragged about in the hearing. He said, “I’ve been on this committee for 44 years.” Well, most people in this country don’t view that as a positive thing. Then you were right. There have actually been five Supreme Court Judges who have entered the court and retired during Patrick Leahy’s tenure. Of course, he was elected in 1974, right after the resignation of President Nixon, of all people. That’s why some have called Patrick Leahy a Watergate baby. And there’ve been five judges who’ve entered the court and retired since then. Judge Stevens, Justice O’Connor, Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and of course, Justice Souter. I mean, do we need rotation in office or what?
Staff: We do? I think that you can clearly see that the entire hearing process is just a partisan circus that is just one side versus the other. There was a poll released recently that just showed people’s support on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, opinion has remained the same prior before and after the hearings because people’s minds had been made up based off of their political affiliation about whether he should serve or not before and after, you know, before the hearings have even taken place. So the judiciary committee members are just making this into a circus.
Nick Tomboulides: Well, a lot of people probably don’t agree on Kavanagh and they may never agree. Republicans and Democrats won’t agree, but I feel like the hearings in a way, all united us behind term limits. I would say every congressional hearing is basically a free commercial for term limits. We almost need to report these hearings as donations to our organization here because there are so valuable for the movement. It just seems like monkeys throwing feces at each other. We don’t feel like we’ve learned anything more at the end of the day than we knew at the beginning of the day, and no matter what side you’re on, a lot of people agree with that. You know, at the beginning of the hearing, Jon Favreau, who’s President Obama’s chief speech writer actually tweeted that Chuck Grassley kicked off the hearing by making a great case for term limits.
Staff: But in all seriousness, I mean if we had term limits for the Senate, those are the people who confirm the appointment. So if we had regular citizen representation, we have regular people trying to run these hearings as opposed to self interested careerists.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, and if you followed the hearings, at least from my perspective, it looked like the younger senators who had a little bit more energy, they were a little bit more invested in the real substance of the accusations and the real substance of Judge Cavanaugh’s record, whereas the older ones were kind of just on a partisan warpath.
Speaker 6: This is a public service announcement. With Guitars!
Stacy Selleck: Roger Pilon is the Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Cato Institute in Washington DC. In this excerpt, Pilon shares some nuts and bolts about tournaments with Virginia Prescott, on Civics 101, an educational podcast sponsored by New Hampshire public radio.
Virginia Prescott: There’ve been some claims that term limits do though, however, create more competitive elections.
Roger Pilon: Oh, absolutely, because it opens up more offices. Now, here’s an interesting sidebar I’ll give you. The opponents included the League of Women Voters, and yet there were other women’s organizations that pointed out that if you’re going to get more women in Congress, you’re going to have to have more open seats because incumbents win 16 to one and so incumbency was the greatest impediment to having more women in the legislature. Here’s a little history that is important to note. Back in the 19th century we didn’t have a great push for this because it was understood that you go to Congress and you serve just a brief time and you go back out. Most members of the House in the 19th century served only one or at most two terms. The idea of term limits includes the idea that you want to be close to the people you represent and the longer you’re there, the longer you’re in the Washington cocoon, so to speak, the more remote you are from your constituents and the more out of tune you are from what their real interests are.
Philip Blumel: To hear the entire episode check out episode 25 at www.civics101podcast.org
Nick Tomboulides: What else is in the news, Austin? Arlington, Texas.
Staff: I think it’s a mess down there. They’ve been fighting for term limits for their members of city council and mayor, I believe as well, for quite a few months. They had gotten enough petitions signed from citizens to put this measure on the ballot and a couple of weeks ago we reported on this that the city council also tried to push another measure for term limits, except they’re for longer terms, they weren’t going to be applied retroactively and it was actually tossed off the ballot.
Staff: And now the politicians on the city council are so frustrated that they’re not getting their way instead of just accepting the inevitable reform. Now they’re trying to investigate who were the actual people who signed the petition and for what reason. They’re trying to have the people who started the citizen petition submit all the information that they received on these petitions in hopes that the city council members who are apparently more ethical than the people, will need to determine why and who exactly signed this petition. It’s just absurd. I mean, what other reason they, the citizens who are heading this clearly wanted to establish term limits. I mean this is the purpose of the petition and for the city council members to think that this was made for some other reason that was being misleading is just like absolutely … why else would they do this? Why else would they have this-
Nick Tomboulides: You’ve got an effort led down there by this guy I really like, his name’s Zach Maxwell. He’s a young gun, he’s a citizen activist. And here’s what he’s realized. He said, our city council is corrupt. Our city council’s no longer serving the people. They’re all about self interest rather than the public interest. And by the way, Arlington is a big city, is a monumental city in Texas, just in, it’s in the Dallas Metro area. It’s where the Texas Rangers play. I think the Cowboy’s stadium might also be there. So it’s a very big and important city to Texas and to their economy. And what you’ve seen is this youth activist, this young guy has come out, he’s led a campaign, he’s gone door to door. He has put his feet to the pavement and collected 11,000 signatures along with his volunteers to put this on the ballot. And the city, the members of the city council have done nothing but obstruct him every step of the way.
Nick Tomboulides: First thing they tried to do was put, like you mentioned, they’re competing phony longterm limit on the ballot, which would have let all the council members serve for another nine years. What use is that?
Staff: Imagine if both of them passed too? Both of the measures passed?
Nick Tomboulides: Well, we know the good one would pass with a higher percentage of the vote, so that one would be the binding law. Great thing about Maxwell’s term limits petition is that it throws the city council out in a very short amount of time. It’s fully retroactive, so in one to two years you get to drain the local swamp and get rid of these corrupt career politicians.
Staff: Sounds good to me.
Nick Tomboulides: Amen to that. It’s great, but the city is basically bringing George Orwell out of the grave here, to try to fight him on this. Here’s what they’re doing. They have sent an army of attorneys at taxpayer expense to file 145 different demands against Maxwell and against the term limits petitioners in order to get term limits off the ballot and their demands are outrageous. No one can possibly comply with this. They’re asking that Maxwell provide all the records of every contact he has made with citizens who signed the petition.
Staff: Yeah. Every single one.
Nick Tomboulides: Is that even possible? That’s not even possible.
Staff: Imagine going up to a guy on a street corner and just saying, “Hey, you know, if you live in this city, we’d love to have your support. You sign up here and you know, based off we reach a certain threshold of signatures, yours will be included to put this measure on the ballot for term limits. You know, just a random guy on the corner and now all of a sudden we need to go back and second guess who is this stranger? How is one person expected to know every single person who signed the petition?
Nick Tomboulides: What Maxwell is trying to do is he’s trying to spark a movement in Texas of citizen government that’s going to spread like wildfire. If this succeeds, maybe the next step is you go to the Texas State Legislature and get them to call for term limits on Congress. I mean, the politicians in Arlington know the implications of this are huge if it passes and that’s why they’re working so hard to stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.
Stacey Selleck: Hi, I’m Stacy Selleck, as digital director for US term limits. I’ve got my ear to the ground on social media to see what everyone is saying about term limits. While for most, this is a no brainer issue. Nearly each day people ask how we can get term limits on a Congress when the politicians will never vote themselves off the gravy train. The truth of the matter is we don’t need the permission of Congress. We’re not delusional. We know the Turkeys won’t vote for Thanksgiving, at least not unless they think they can sweeten the pot and give themselves a better deal. I know many of our supporters just want to national vote on the issue, but the Supreme Court took up the term limits on Congress issue and decided it must be an amendment to the constitution just as the President has.
Stacey Selleck: The good news is that we can bypass Congress completely by going through the states. You see the constitution itself in Article Five provides two methods for proposing amendments. One way is through Congress. The other way is through the states. Once 34 pass a resolution for a proposal convention through their own state legislatures, the National Assembly must be called. So no, we don’t need congress, but we do need our state lawmakers to take up the torch and support this very important issue. It is precisely for this reason when Congress fails to act that it’s the obligation of the states to take on the mantle.
Stacey Selleck: So what happens at the Convention, the Article Five Convention is a forum for a national discussion. All the states will be invited to send commissioners to deliberate what the term limits amendment will look like. They hear from experts, statisticians, academics, and governmental consultants alike will have the opportunity to provide input. After that, the terms of the amendment will be hashed out and agreed upon or not. If a term limits amendment is approved, the proposal will go to the next step in the process where it must be ratified by 38 states to become part of the Constitution. This national effort is no easy task, while 82% of the people across all parties and demographics want this, many in the DC swamp do not. This is why we need to make our case to the state lawmakers and what better time than election season.
Stacey Selleck: We are making significant progress. If you feel passionate about putting an end to the dysfunction in DC, sign our petition at termlimits.com. Your state law makers will listen to you much more readily than they will to us. Your actions are powerful, but the steps you take are easy. Just tell your state rep you want term limits on Congress, by phone, by email or even in person and be ready to our calls to action when the resolution is moving through your state legislature. The more of you who take action, the sooner we’ll get this done. Remember, sign the petition at termlimits.com and thank you for your support.
Philip Blumel: Jim Coxworth is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. Coxworth is a businessman who grew up in Illinois, went to school and raised his family there. This year he launched an organization called Illinois Citizen Uprising because quote, “I’ve grown tired and angry at how our state government is being literally destroyed by our corrupt, self-serving politicians who have brought this state to the brink of financial ruin.” On October 11th, Coxsworth will start walking from Chicago to Springfield, the Capital to draw attention to his campaign to impose eight year term limits on the state legislature and create an independent commission to draw non gerrymandered districts. Today we’ll talk to him about the effort.
Philip Blumel: How you doing Jim?
Jim Coxworth: I’m doing well.
Philip Blumel: Well Great. Thanks for being on the program with us. I’ve been reviewing this 2018 Illinois issues survey that was just published by the Center for State Policy and leadership at the University of Illinois. Wow. Illinois citizens are not happy. The survey reports that 53% of those surveyed considered leaving the state in the past year, and that those are the younger ones are the most likely to say this, and the number one reason they cite is government, either high taxes or state politics. Is it really that bad?
Jim Coxworth: Oh, I think it’s that bad. I think the average citizen in Illinois today feels like the game’s rigged, they can’t win, they can’t get anything done and everything is being blocked by the politicians. So instead of the system working for the voters, it just works for the entrenched politicians. Matter of fact, I think 60, 65% of the all statewide races are now unopposed.
Philip Blumel: That’s right. Yep. There’s hardly even elections being held there and there was a study done it’s a little bit outdated now, but things have not really changed, that looked at a decade of politics in Illinois, I think ending in about 2005 maybe, but in any case, it showed that not only are there few elections taking place, but of those elections being held they’re so lopsided, they were in this study, there were no races that were decided by less than 25%.
Jim Coxworth: Crazy.
Philip Blumel: So people must love their politicians there is what I’d have to assume, right?
Jim Coxworth: Well, if we love our politics, they’ve delivered super high taxes. They can’t pay their bills, they have deficits and they’ve got pension, they’ve got looming pension debts. That I don’t see how they’ll ever pay them. So I guess, the politicians love the politicians, but I don’t think the voters really do.
Philip Blumel: No, they don’t. And I think you’ve nailed the two main issues. How did you go about choosing term limits and fairly drawn districts as your primary targets for your campaign?
Jim Coxworth: You know, for years I was pretty busy running my own businesses. I always took note of politics and what was going on. And I noticed that things never changed. And as I sold my last business about three years ago, I started looking a little heavier and I was like, every time people try and do things within the system, the way it’s set up in Illinois nothing seems to get done.
Jim Coxworth: So my thought was the only way we really can change things and put the power back in the voters hands is to change the rules of engagement or the system. So you know, I think the epitome of what’s wrong in Illinois today is Michael Madigan and I think he’s been there for over 40 years and he’s been Speaker of the House for 35, and he runs the Democratic machine and pretty much whether you’re Republican or Democrat, that guy runs the state, not the governor. So we need to take power away from these entrenched politicians. And I think term limits is the only thing I can see that will do that and bring competition into the system. And also new blood.
Philip Blumel: Right. Voters are with you on this. Of course, you know this, according to that same survey I just cited, 80% of voters and this is brand new, support state term limits and only 14% oppose them.
Jim Coxworth: Well, you know, I think even, you know, this is supposed to be a free country and the legislature is supposed to serve the people and I can’t understand how 80% of the people want term limits and they never make it to the ballot. That’s a problem.
Philip Blumel: Now there’s been efforts to put term limits on the ballot. Illinois is a citizens’ initiative state, which in theory, does give citizens some opportunity to go around the corrupt legislature and take action themselves. Why has that not worked?
Jim Coxworth: You know, I’m not a politician, I’m not totally schooled in what goes on, but it seems like whenever those things come up, Madigan finds a way to either find a technicality or I think one, I think Rauner even got a whole bunch of signatures for term limits and it made it all the way to the Supreme Court, only to find that the judges who are kind of beholden to Madigan again, quashed it for some technicality.
Philip Blumel: Well that’s exactly what happened. And it happened twice. The first time back in 1994, with Pat Quinn actually spearheaded the effort, in 94, before he was governor, Democratic governor and he brought the measure, collected the signatures and the Supreme Court shot it down and when Rauner came back and tried to do it again in 2014, he had the first decision to look at, in order to craft a new term limits proposal that would meet the objections of the court the first time. But the court came up with new objections and got shot down again. So we have two citizens efforts shot down. And this is how we usually get term limits on state legislatures, by the way. So how is it that your effort is going to be successful and how is it different than what’s already been tried?
Jim Coxworth: You know, I don’t know whether it’s going to be successful or not, but there’s an awful lot of people like me. Like I said, I’ve had my whole career here, I’ve gotten all the benefits of the State of Illinois, and I want to give back a little bit. And if you can’t make it in the system, I think you got to try and make it without the system. So this is more of a populist, grassroots movement to get people upset and excited and demand term limits whether they got to go outside their legislators office or they meet me in all the towns I’m walking through and then meet me down in Springfield and let all these politicians know that we’re not gonna not have term limits. We’ve got to have a change. We’ve got to have structural change. And I would rather fight this thing and really excite the voters instead of packing my bags and leaving.
Philip Blumel: Yes. Well that’s great. And so you’re, the effort then is to … or the goal is to put pressure on state legislators to act, we know the voters are for it.
Jim Coxworth: Correct. But, we got to get the voters out. They can’t be sleepy. They can’t be quiet. They can’t … you know they’ve got to start getting a little excited about this and demand change.
Scott Tillman: This is Scott Tillman, the National Field Director with US term limits. Every election cycle we do a series of pledges. One pledge we do is to state legislators, people running for state House and state Senate. This pledge is asking them to support an Article Five resolution to help us get term limits on Congress. The pledge reads, I pledge that as a member of the state legislature, I will cosponsor and vote for the resolution applying for an Article Five Convention for the sole purpose of enacting term limits on Congress. We’ve had a very good year with these pledges this year. And we’ve had 289 legislative candidates sign the pledge. Of those 289, 193 are going to be in their races going into the general election this November. So we have a 193 state House and state Senate legislators who’ve signed the Article Five Pledge to support term limits on Congress.
Philip Blumel: So tell us about your walk and why are you doing this?
Jim Coxworth: Well, I think my walk is kind of a crazy thing to do, but I think it shows the commitment of one guy who’s, like I said, I’ve had all the benefits of Illinois and I think it’s a great state. There’s only two things I think that are rough about Illinois. The weather in the winter and our government. So why should we put up with government like that? I want to just, you know, I’m sick of all the politicians bending the truth and getting on TV and saying they’re voting for term limits and all that crap that they do only to wink, wink, nod, nod and get them killed in committee.
Jim Coxworth: So I’m gonna walk and I’m going to hopefully get some social media and I’m going to get some attention and I’m going to walk all the way to Springfield and just keep talking about the same points that we’ve got to take back our state. We’ve got to change the system with which it runs. We’ve got a secondary point too of non gerrymandering. So those are the two things that I think would really change the game and put the power back in the voters.
Philip Blumel: That’s great. How far is it from Chicago to Springfield?
Jim Coxworth: From my house it’s 187 miles. So I will start on the 11th of October and I think I get down around the 22nd I think. Our final destination will be at Lincoln’s tomb.
Philip Blumel: And so as you walk through the various towns along … I guess you’re taking route 66?
Jim Coxworth: Well yeah, from Chicago we’ll go straight south till we hit route 66 and then we’re going to take that all the way down, kind of an historic route. So we’re going to do that. And hit all the small towns, go through Bloomington Normal and then through Lincoln on to Springfield.
Philip Blumel: Okay. And as you go through these small towns, if people come out to see you and ask you what you’re doing and want to be involved, what are you going to tell them? What should people do in order to be part of this movement?
Jim Coxworth: Well, we’ve got a website, we’re getting politicians to try and sign up on a questionnaire we sent them out that they support term limits. So we’re going to talk to them about supporting politicians that support term limits and those that don’t to go to their offices and demand change. Call them, write them, however they could … email them, however they can get ahold of them. And if we get enough support, enough people, maybe they’ll meet us all down in Springfield and we’ll raise a little ruckus.
Philip Blumel: Do you have a timetable on how long you may take to successfully get this on the ballot?
Jim Coxworth: You know, I don’t, like I said, I’m not a politician. This is more of a grassroots populist effort. I’ve certainly got people who advise me on this, but I want to see if we can really excite the populace to demand change because I feel like we’re a bunch of whipped dogs, you know, we’re just, we’re getting hammered here and nobody likes it. And like I said, how could 80% of the people want term limits and we can’t even get it on the ballot.
Philip Blumel: Right. Okay. And you’re right, it’s not going to happen without people getting fired up. And that’s what you’re up to. Great.
Jim Coxworth: Exactly and even all the politicians do all the messaging, the lying, the, you know, the … it’s just baloney. They don’t want term limits. They’re scared to death of them.
Philip Blumel: Right. So if someone wants to get involved in your movement, how will they get in touch with you? What should they do?
Jim Coxworth: Go to our website, Illinois Citizen Uprising.com and there’s signup sheets there and there’s a phone number they can call, they can email us. We’ve got a couple people working here that can do that and they can even call me and talk to me on my walk. We’ll be doing constant video and Facebook live shots on the way down.
Philip Blumel: Oh, great idea. Okay, well that sounds good. And when they contact you, you’ll get back with a touch with them with, I guess action items to take so that you can act in concert in putting pressure on your legislators.
Jim Coxworth: Correct. Correct.
Philip Blumel: Well, we wish you the best of luck, Jim.
Jim Coxworth: Any help you can give us with your group too would be great.
Philip Blumel: Well we definitely want everybody, all the term limit supporters that we know around the country also to know what you’re doing because one, it inspires people in other places to take similar actions. So would definitely an important effort and we appreciate everything, Jim.
Jim Coxworth: Very good. Well thanks for having me on. Thank you very much.
Philip Blumel: Thank you. Bye. Bye.
Nick Tomboulides: I want to delve into a little bit of term limits history here for our listeners. You know, you talked to elected officials and critics of term limits. They make it sound like this movement just started in the 1990s that we’re late to the game. We’re just a bunch of angry people with pitchforks and torches and all that jazz, but what they don’t tell you is that term limits has a rich and storied history in democracy going all the way back to Cincinnatus in ancient Rome and Aristotle in ancient Greece leading up to the present day. So I thought a cool segment that we could launch as part of this podcast is to focus on a historical quote about term limits and this one is actually from former President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower said this in 1965, he was talking to a reporter and they asked him whether he thought the length of a term should be longer for a member of the House.
Nick Tomboulides: He said, yeah, it should, but Eisenhower also volunteered his opinion on term limits. The man they called Ike said, “If we had term limits on Congress, each member would spend less time keeping his eyes on the next election and more and centering them on the good of the nation. A more rapid turnover of the membership in both Houses with its constant infusion of new blood would largely eliminate the career politician in Congress.”
Nick Tomboulides: And of course Eisenhower was not the only president who supported term limits. Dating back to the very founding of our country, George Washington, the Father of our Country supported term limits. He voluntarily left office after two terms, which established the eight year precedent that we still have today. That was added to our constitution in 1951. John Adams supported term limits. Benjamin Franklin supported term limits. For presidents of more recent vintage, Truman supported it. George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, all said that Congress should have some form of rotation so that no individual member, or their ego becomes greater than the position to which they were elected to serve. Most historians who look back on him today, say Eisenhower was one of the best presidents we ever had. He was actually the first president to serve after term limits were ratified into the constitution. And he is a shining example of the need to elect not great politicians but great Americans.
Staff: And there’s actually a gentleman from Massachusetts, Dennis Crowald Dalton, who wrote in the Berkshire Eagle, paper up in Massachusetts there, wrote a letter to the editor. Here’s a little clip, “It’s time for a change and we, the people must demand it. If allowed to continue the partisan politics will destroy this country. The time for term limits has come.”
Staff: We’re going to have the link for this little article in the show notes. Give Dennis a shoutout and tell him, thanks for writing it. We need more people who are willing to just write in their own home newspapers, what they see in their testament and why we need term limits. So check that out in the show notes and we appreciate your support, Dennis.
Speaker 10: Thanks for joining us again this week. It is about time Illinois saw a citizen uprising, the whole country, in fact, the strategy’s in place, it’s all a matter of getting our 80% majority mobilized. So this podcast is part of that effort. Please tell your friends about it, and if you haven’t already, subscribe, you can use the podcast app on your iPhone or download Stitcher for your Android phone or go to iTunes and be sure to review us while you’re there.
Philip Blumel: The revolution isn’t being televised, fortunately, you have the No Uncertain Terms podcast.
(end podcast)
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links :
“Evacuate” written by Nic Austin as performed by Chelsea, “Know Your Rights” written by Strummer/Jones as performed by The Clash, “Have A Cigar” written by Roger Waters as performed by Pink Floyd
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Duke Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)