Nick Tomboulides: Hi I’m Nick Tomboulides, and this is the No Uncertain Terms Podcast for the week of July 25th, 2022.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Nick Tomboulides: In a week with a record high heat wave, we’re also seeing a wave of positive developments for term limits throughout the country. Down in the Arizona desert, we are taking our message directly to the people to expose sleazy anti-term limit slime balls. In Michigan, the good guys are fighting back against the biggest scam ever, all that and more this week, on No Uncertain Terms.
Nick Tomboulides: A quick look at Google Trends shows people are asking some great questions about our political system, got a few of these here. Why does our system produce incompetent leaders? Why do so many politicians suck? Why do voters back dishonest politicians? And I think one good explanation is most people don’t know how bad most of our leaders are. We’ll look at term limits as an example, we know that more than 80% of Americans support it, but many politicians are quite shaky, quite flimsy on term limits, if not totally opposed, but those politicians who oppose term limits, they lack the guts, they lack the cojones, for lack of a better term, to come out and admit where they stand, so what they do is, they hope and they pray that term limits just never comes up for a vote, so they don’t have to go on the record. And then when it does come up for a vote, they hope and pray, nobody notices because when a legislators constituents find out that that legislator stinks on term limits, they’re gonna be up in arms, they’re gonna wanna get out the pitch forks and torches.
Nick Tomboulides: And that is how many bad politicians managed to stick around despite not listening to the people. Despite becoming tools to be manipulated by the lobbyists and by the special interest because nobody is exposing them, no one is publicizing their record so the people can be informed and make an informed choice. And the mainstream media certainly don’t. If it’s not a social issue, something hyper-controversial or something to do with Trump and January 6th, the media don’t give a hoot. They don’t report when lawmakers betray their constituents on a daily basis by voting against term limits, they love to talk about different threats to democracy, but one threat to democracy that they never talk about is the 95% re-election rate for incumbents. So it’s hypocritical. And because no one is reporting on these politicians betraying their constituents, someone else has to step up and fill that role and come hell or high water, that someone is gonna be us, that’s gonna be US term limits. What we are doing right now is we’re going around the country and we’re systematically informing citizens about where their politicians stand. We are telling them who has signed the US Term Limits Pledge and who has refused to sign, and when a vote has taken place, we’re telling people who has voted for term limits and who has voted against it.
Nick Tomboulides: So people going into the ballot box this year, when it comes to term limits, they have more information at their disposal than ever before, you go to termlimits.com, you can see the list of who has signed the pledge. And by the way, just to clarify, there are two pledges, there’s the state legislative pledge, which asks your state rep and your state senator, the people who serve in your state capital to commit their support to the term limits amendment proposing convention, that would allow the state legislatures to do an end run around congress and propose congressional term limits on their own. Whereas, if we’re talking Congressional candidates that’s completely different pledge. Congress members, they can propose an amendment directly, so that pledge is for a specific amendment, three house terms, two senate terms and no longer limit. But let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. With holding politicians accountable. So in Arizona, back in February, the state senate voted on the term limits convention. Had it passed, Arizona would have taken a huge leap forward in the movement to term limit Congress because their State House had already passed this before, we had the votes in the State House, but come 2022, the State House said, “Look, we’ve passed this several times, the Senate has never taken it up, so we’re not gonna vote on it unless the Senate passes it first.”
Nick Tomboulides: Right? So we were fortunate enough, we got it through the Senate committee, we got it to the floor of the Arizona State Senate, and instead of passing, it failed by just two votes, it failed 15 to 13, which means that if any two State Senators in Arizona who voted no. Had actually voted yes. It would have passed. We would have been successful. Now, two Republican senators in particular, Wendy Rogers and Tyler Pace voted against this because they opposed term limits, their own personal jihad against term limits was more important to them than standing by the people back home in their districts. Both Rogers and Pace happened to be on the ballot this year in Arizona, and in a typical political situation, no one would know that Rogers and Pace had thrown term limits under the bus because it’s not on the local news, two of them certainly, ain’t bragging about it ’cause they’re not proud about it, no one would know, it would have died in darkness, they would just continue to tell people how conservative they are, they keep going to the local rubber chicken dinners and taking pictures in front of the American flag all the while voting against something that is in their party platform, voting against their party platform, but that’s what happens in typical politics.
Nick Tomboulides: That’s what happens when no one is held accountable, but us Term limits. We are anything but typical. We’re aggressive, we’re committed, we’re scorched earth. So before the August Republican primary, we are sending tons of mailers into both of these districts, Wendy Rogers district, Arizona district seven, and Tyler Pace’s district, district nine, telling the people what happened, and not to mention in both of these districts, both of these races, their primary opponents Rogers and Pace’s opponents happen to be great on term limits. Kelly Townsend is the state senator who is running against Rogers, due to redistributing, you’ve got two sitting senators running against each other, very unique situation, Kelly Townsend was the lead sponsor of the Term Limits Convention in Arizona, she is a leading figure in the term limits movement, and in the article five movement, I don’t think there is a legislator anywhere in America who is better on this issue than Townsend. So the contrast, it really couldn’t be more clear, it’s an anti-term limit hack Wendy Rogers against a pro-term limit champion, Kelly Townsend in Arizona, District seven.
Nick Tomboulides: And we’re making sure the people in that district have all the facts. It’s the same thing for district nine, where Tyler Pace, bad, bad guy on term limits, very bad guy, very establishment guy who doesn’t give a hoot what his own voters think of this issue, has no desire whatsoever to change the broken system in Washington, his opponent, Robert Scantlebury is a proud signer of the US Term Limits Pledge, so there is an incredible contrast for the voters in both of these races, a bigger contrast than ever before, the US term limits is educating citizens as much as we can about who is pro-term limits, who is anti-term limits, Arizona, I will tell you is just the tip of the iceberg for us, it’s one battlefield, it’s one battle ground among many, but we’re not gonna quit there until we get it done until we get the legislature to pass the term limits convention, but all over America, we’re gonna continue doing this, we’re gonna keep politicians honest wherever we have the opportunity to do so until they finally come together, do what’s right for our country and vote for the term limits, convention.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: As of today, 100 sitting members of the US Congress have signed the US term limits congressional pledge. But we can expect this number to grow into the November elections as more and more candidates for office sign on. The US Term Limits Pledge commits the signer to cosponsor and vote for the congressional term limits amendment. The pledge is an issue and races all over the country, in a recent sighting, candidate for the US Senate, Kevin Smith of New Hampshire noted that he was a pledge signer during a June 27th candidate debate in Manchester.
Kevin Smith: The time for Schumer Pelosi is over. Here’s the other thing, I’ve taken the term limits pledge, I might be the only candidate up here that is pledged term limits. Don, you too? Okay, good, but the reality is, look, more than two terms, that’s enough, we don’t need anyone going down for more than 12 years, if you can’t get done in 12 years what you went to do down there, you’re not gonna get it done in 18 years. We have people on both sides of the aisle who have been down there for far too long, and it’s time we have new leadership, new blood, new energy, new perspectives in this country.
Nick Tomboulides: Alright, another quick bit of news. I wanted to update you quickly on the great state of Michigan, as you know, we’ve reported it here, the corruption cartel of Michigan, the Star Wars Cantina combo of swampy politicians, lobbyists and insiders, they have put their crooked scheme on the ballot for November, they want to lengthen the Michigan term limits, which have been around since 1992, six years in the House, eight years in the Senate, they wanna lengthen that by 50%, and they’re lying to the voters about it, they are calling it a pro-term limits measure, because that’s the only way they can trick people into voting for it, they’re combining it with phony baloney pro-transparency stuff, and quite frankly, they’re so smug about it, they’re already taking a victory lap and they’re pretending as if this whole thing is on the up and up, but it’s really much more sinister, it’s a direct attack on democracy because it’s using such non-transparent deceptive duplicitous language to try to trick the people.
Nick Tomboulides: But I am happy to report that in Michigan, the force has awakened. The people of Michigan are fighting back. We had mentioned the Group Term Limits Defense Fund was formed a little while ago, well, they’ve now hired a campaign manager, Keith Allard, who is a former legislative staffer there with experience as a whistle blower. Full disclosure, I do know Keith, he’s a great guy, and this resistance is now getting some mainstream press coverage. Here’s a piece from a Bridge Michigan, which is one the top publications out there, “Campaign forms to oppose Michigan term limits reform proposal,” that’s a mouthful, but what they really mean is campaign forms to defend term limits from this crooked repeal effort.
Nick Tomboulides: There’s a quote in here from Allard, he said of the scam initiative, “It really struck me as self-serving behavior. I don’t believe the legislature can police itself.” He said the campaign will definitely be under-funded, that’s no surprise. Allard said, “We are going to be the garage band out there, and we’re gonna be running a humorous and creative campaign,” in addition, Scott Tillman, of who we all know, national field director of US term limits has quoted here, he’s a Michigander. Scott called the ballot proposal pull manufactured transparency from this lobbyist written proposition, term limits were approved by Michigan voters who do not wanna go back to the days of career politicians serving decades in office and cutting back room deals like this ballot proposal.
Nick Tomboulides: Amen. Scott. Now, we gotta give some equal time, there’s also a quote in here from the proponents of the scam initiative, where they said the opposition group was created in search of a problem. No, I would say that your under handed repeal of term limits is indeed a problem. This is John Truscott from the fake group, Voters for Transparency and Term Limits. Truscott said, “If the campaign against our proposal wanted to change the proposal, they should have pushed for a rival ballot proposal or legislative changes through the state legislature.” Yeah, okay, I’m sure politicians in Michigan are gonna start loving term limits as soon as McDonalds goes vegan, Mr. Truscott. He said that if they were serious and sincere, they would do something concrete and put a plan together. It sounds like the Term Limits Defense Fund does have a plan. They’re gonna get the word out in Michigan, they’re gonna use a clever, creative digital humorous campaign to expose the politicians, and we’ll see where it goes. Obviously, they have full support from US term limits, we’re gonna continue monitoring this and we’re gonna continue doing all that we can to help our friends in Michigan.
Nick Tomboulides: One final note, I wanted to just tell you about an experience I had over the weekend. I happen to be attending a Congressional debate here in Florida for Congress district seven, which is an open seats being vacated by a democratic Congresswoman, Stephanie Murphy. It’s now a Republican district, and there’s a bunch of Republicans running for that seat, including many US Term Limits Pledge signers, Anthony Sabatini, Cory Mills, Erika Benfield, Scott Sturgill among others. But I attended a debate among these Republican candidates over the weekend, and there were two moderators of the debate, it was Mark Levin, conservative radio host who’s been around a very long time, and then the other moderator happened to be the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and first of all, I was thinking, “Wow, how unusual is it for a governor to moderate a Congressional Debate?” You don’t see that everyday, first of all. But beyond that, I was curious what kinds of questions would DeSantis ask these candidates? And to my pleasant surprise, as soon as Levin handed the mic over to DeSantis, his first question for the candidates was, where do you stand on congressional term limits? And every single candidate on that stage said that there were four term limits on Congress, which is very encouraging.
Nick Tomboulides: Now, one of them, Brady Duke, even though he said he’s for term limits, I went up to him after the event, asked him to sign the US Term Limits Pledge, and he said he would have to take a look at it. He still hasn’t signed the US Term Limits Pledge, but all the others in that Florida District seven race have signed the pledge, and it just made me so optimistic to see that the governor of Florida cares so deeply about this issue, he cared enough about it to inquire about where these candidates stand, I know term limits is an issue that’s been very near and dear to DeSantis for a long time, it’s something that he has fought for as the Governor of Florida, and if he ever seeks higher office, I’m sure it’s going to be a cornerstone of that campaign and effort as well. So I just wanted to give a tip of the hat to our old Governor here, Ron DeSantis, for making sure term limits is always on the front burner.
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 break through 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’re 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, LinkedIn, Instagram, and now, TikTok.
Speaker 6: USTL.