INTRO MUSIC : “Let’s Go” by The Cars
Philip Blumel: Mr. Term Limits goes to Washington. For the first time in 20 years, last week, the US Senate held hearings on congressional term limits and the star witness was our own nick Tomboulides. Hi, I’m Philip Lomell. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of June 24th, 2019.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Senator Ted Cruz, chaired a hearing before the Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution last Tuesday. It was titled Keeping Congress Accountable, Term Limits in the United States and featured Senator Cruz, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, former Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and the Executive Director of US term limits is going to tell us how it went? Hey Nick.
Nick Tomboulides: Hey, Phil.
Philip Blumel: First, I want to say that I thought you did a fantastic job in representing the issue and also our organization in Washington last week.
Nick Tomboulides: Thank you. I appreciate the compliment.
Philip Blumel: We’re going to hear some of your testimony in just a bit, but let’s set the scene first. Where did this take place?
Nick Tomboulides: This took place in Dirksen building of the US Senate. That’s where all the Senate offices are, and that’s also where the most of the major hearings are. It was in the judiciary committee room, which is probably best known to the American public as the place where Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by the judiciary committee over a series of days. So I not only got to be in the same room where that took place, but I got to sit at the same table where Kavenaugh was and take questions from some of the same senators. It was really cool. I was hoping, by the way, that maybe Kavenaugh had left a six pack of beer under the table to help me get through the hearing, but unfortunately, it wasn’t there.
Philip Blumel: No? Well, you did all right. Anyways, like I say.
Nick Tomboulides: Sometimes you need it though to deal with politicians, right?
Philip Blumel: Sure.
Nick Tomboulides: Just to take that edge off a little bit because it can be frustrating at times.
Philip Blumel: I’m sure it was. On this committee, which is the Subcommittee on the Constitution, which is a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The chairman, as we mentioned, was Ted Cruz. Also, John Cornyn of Texas is on this committee. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Those are the Republicans, and on the Democrats Committee, Mazie Hirono, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island, Chris Coons of Delaware, and Kamala Harris of California. So were all 10 of these senators engaging you last Tuesday?
Nick Tomboulides: No. No, actually only four of the senators showed up. Ted Cruz, the chairman, he had to be there. He’s the guy who called the hearing. He’s actually the sponsor of the the US term limits amendment, the ranking member, Hirono, who is the leading Democrat on the committee, she was there as well. And then Mike Lee from Utah and Ben Sasse from Nebraska, both Republicans, the rest of the committee members were totally absent. But they didn’t really have a good excuse because right before this hearing, the full Senate was actually voting on some judges on the Senate chamber. There was literally nothing stopping them from coming into this hearing and discussing term limits, except maybe some of them feared talking about it.
Philip Blumel: Oh, I have no doubt.
Nick Tomboulides: Because they didn’t want to face the music. They didn’t want to have to confront some of the arguments and confront their terrible track record.
Philip Blumel: Right. And Kamala Harris is probably out of politicking, running for president.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s so funny you mentioned that. I didn’t know what Kamala Harris was doing, but when I was flying back from DC later that evening, I was watching MSNBC on my seat back and I saw Kamala Harris was in New York City on the Lawrence O’Donnell show and she was talking about how President Trump doesn’t understand the importance of his job. I was thinking to myself, do you grasp the irony here? Like this is unbelievable. You just missed a very important committee hearing on term limits.
Philip Blumel: A subject that has important to 82% of the people in the United States.
Nick Tomboulides: Exactly. So she says this on the same day she didn’t show up for her own job and missed a major committee hearing. I think the fact that so many senators missed the hearing just underscores why term limits are so important. Could you imagine if you had a job in the real world? Could you imagine if you were a plumber or an accountant or a lawyer or you worked at Taco bell or wherever and you just decided, I’m not going to show up today.
Philip Blumel: Right.
Nick Tomboulides: I’m not going to give anyone a good reason. I just don’t feel like coming into work. You would be out on your ass with a pink slip. It’s only acceptable in the fantasy land of Washington DC to behave like that, but in the real world that is ridiculous behavior. They should have been there. Term limits is a really important subject to the American people and they really just made the case for term limits by not showing up.
Philip Blumel: They did indeed. So let’s start out by listening to your opening remarks. This was on the second of two panels that were held that afternoon, and the first was with former senator Jim DeMint, but we’ll here from him on next week’s podcast. But starting on the second panel last Tuesday was our own Nick Tomboulides. Let’s roll it.
Ted Cruz: Mr. Nick Tomboulides is the Executive Director of US Term Limits, one of the nation’s leading advocacy groups in favor of term limits. Under his leadership US term limits launched the term limits convention, a campaign to obtain a constitutional amendment for term limits via convention of the states. Nick is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and currently resides in Melbourne, Florida with his family. Our first witness, Mr. Tomboulides.
Nick Tomboulides: Thank you Mr. Chairman and senators for providing me an opportunity to address this important issue. I want you to imagine for a moment that you are an employer and you’ve got some problems with your employees. When you hired these employees, they promised they would do exactly what you asked of them, but once they got the job, they became a nightmare. They stopped listening to you and started using the job to line their own pockets. They took the company credit card and racked up more debt than you could afford to pay back. They became so obsessed with keeping their jobs that they forgot to do their jobs. And after all that failure, all that disappointment and all that incompetence, your employees came to you and said, we deserve a raise. If you’re a reasonable person, that should make your blood boil. And yet that is exactly what it feels like to be an American taxpayer.
Nick Tomboulides: The first three words in our constitution are, we the people. It’s written larger than anything else because the framers of that document, the architects of our Republic, wanted to remind you at all times who’s in charge. We the people, we are your employers and you have an obligation to listen to us. So I come to you with a message from the American people. We demand term limits for members of Congress. In fact, according to the most recent national polls on the issue, 82% of Americans want term limits. That includes support from 89% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats and 83% of independent voters. This is not a left or right issue. This is an American issue. In fact, term limits could be the only issue with support from both President Trump and former president Obama.
Nick Tomboulides: Now, there was a time about 25 years ago when Congress was debating this. Nearly every opponent of term limits up here had the same rebuttal experience, experience, experience. We need experienced to do this job right. If only leave your Congress member in office for decades on end, he or she will become such a policy expert that all our problems will be solved. In hindsight, that was one of the worst predictions ever. This system is broken. Congress has given us $22 trillion in debt, the longest war in American history, a broken healthcare system, a broken immigration system, a tax code written by lobbyists and explosion of money in politics. Worst of all, too few here have the courage to address these problems because the only focus is on getting reelected. That’s why it comes as no surprise that Congress has a 14% approval rating and 60% of Americans say that they would fire every single member of Congress if they could. Congress is less popular than traffic jams, root canals and hemorrhoids. You’re beating head lice, but the lice have asked for a recount.
Nick Tomboulides: Unfortunately, elections alone cannot fix this problem, not because voters like you guys so much, but due to the nearly unbreakable power of incumbency. At the same time, members of Congress publicly claim elections are free and fair. They secretly deploy every trick in the book to keep power. Incumbents get $9 in special interest money for every dollar that goes to a challenger. And if incumbents are having difficulty raising money, not to worry. They’re allowed to send campaign style mailers at taxpayer expense. That’s to say nothing of all the free media and name recognition politicians naturally get just for being in office. The incumbent advantage creates a barrier to entry for everyday Americans without the connections to fund a campaign. It is the case for term limits.
Nick Tomboulides: Elections May in theory be capable of dethrone incumbents, but that isn’t how it works in the real world. Congressional incumbents have a 98% reelection rate. That probably explains why Congress looks more like a country club than a melting pot. It’s predominantly made up of lawyers and politicians and is disproportionately old, white, rich, and male. Term limits would give us a legislature that better reflects the diversity of our society. The message longterm incumbents send to young people like me seems to be, we want you just close enough to the political process to help us win, but don’t get too close and take our jobs. The American people have lost confidence in this congress and for good reason. We routinely see abuses of power. 18 months ago, it was revealed that members of Congress were secretly using tax payer money to settle lawsuits, some for sexual harassment.
Nick Tomboulides: You still haven’t disclosed how our money was spent and on whose behalf. So term limits is a check on arrogance, it’s a check on incumbency and it’s a check on power. It’s a way to restore political courage while bringing fresh faces and ideas to Washington. As Ben Franklin said, for the rulers to return among the people was not to degrade them, but to promote them. As Kanye West said, no one man should have all that power.
Nick Tomboulides: Here’s the dilemma we face. Over 80% of Americans want term limits to happen. Donald Trump and Barack Obama want it. It is being blocked purely by the self interest of Congress. If this were a trial, you all would have to recuse yourselves because there is a colossal conflict of interest. If term limits pass, you won’t stay in the limelight forever. You won’t be the center of attention and some people might even stop laughing at your jokes. You’ll have to become ordinary citizens and that is, my friends, the entire point. We’re asking you to do what’s right and listen to the people you represent. It’s time to bring the gravy train into the station, end the reign of career politicians and give Congress back to the people. Please support Senate joint resolution one for term limits. Thank you.
Philip Blumel: Yeah, you really gave it to them. That bit about the head lice is classic.
Nick Tomboulides: You like that? I had to submit my remarks in advance to the Senate committee. I’m not going to name any of these guys, but some of the committee staffers sent me a note on the eve of the hearing and they basically said, you can’t say head lice in the United States Congress. You can’t compare politicians to head lice. Do you know what’s going to what’s going to happen if we circulate this? The senators are going to be outraged. And I was thinking, well, Senators are going to be outraged? This is a good thing. Maybe I need to amp it up a little bit more. So I was just getting kind of encouraged by this. And then one of them actually said to me, if you say this, we might have to eject you from the hearing.
Nick Tomboulides: And so my response was, I hear senators say this all the time. I listen to cable news. There was a senator from Louisiana, he said something about head lice a few weeks ago on Morning Show. The Washington Post prints these polls on the front page about our Congress has less popular than head lice. So I said, going to what? I’m just going to go for it. I’m just going to say it because this is how I feel and this is how most Americans feel, and I don’t think I should be bottled up by politicians. Is it not typical Washington DC though to have staffers reach out to you and be totally inhibited, totally risk averse, not Willing to say anything that might ruffle feathers or offend somebody. I mean that’s all too typical and I knew if we were going to come in there and we were going to turn over the tables and really dismantle the system and make our case, we couldn’t pull any punches.
Philip Blumel: Yeah, I’m really glad you did. I think it was called for and necessary, and plus it also increased the impact of your testimony. We’ve been seeing all over the internet, and people, what did they point to? Your testimony and particularly, that part of your testimony. My only concern is that the chairman of this committee is our sponsor on the bill and a true believer. He’s really out there fighting the fight to try to get this done and called this hearing. I mean, well, I wonder what he thought about it.
Nick Tomboulides: At the end of the hearing Cruz walks up to me, and you’re going to have to pardon this terrible Cruz impression. He walks right up to me and he said, “When you compared us to head lice… and then he just pause for a second. I said, “Yeah?” He just leaned in further and he said, “When you compare us to head lice, that was being too generous.” I was just thinking, this guy is my brother from another mother. He’s a true believer when it comes to term limits and I knew he didn’t make his political career by pulling punches around politicians either, so we were totally singing from the same hymnal on that.
Philip Blumel: Right, next let’s hear the portion of the testimony where after the second panel has made their introductory remarks, we have a Chairman Cruz asking you some questions and then there were some other back and forth. Let’s hear that.
Ted Cruz: Mr. Tomboulides, your organization, US Term Limits has been one of the major groups supporting term limits for Congress since the 1990s. Can you tell us about how your group got started and how it got involved in the term limits movement?
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah. Term Limits is basically the largest grassroots movement in the history of our country. This has never been a politician driven enterprise. In fact, politicians don’t like term limits. That’s why I think it’s such a good idea. But this was basically started in a small group of people across several states in the early 1990s, were just dissatisfied with the quality of government that they were getting at the state level and from Congress. They had looked at presidential term limits, which were ratified in the constitution in 1951 and said, this has served our country well. This has struck a good balance between getting a fresh face in office, without allowing them to become too stale. And so they developed the concept for legislative term limits at the state level, and congressional term limits. It went to the ballot in 23 states, and it was passed in all 23 states with an average yes vote of 70% without any help from the political class.
Nick Tomboulides: So that that’s basically how it got started. We formed an organization around this to continue promoting the effort because largely despite some of what you’ve heard today, term limits in the states have worked very well. States with term limits actually have the most competitive elections in the country. And that’s the chief aim of term limits, to make elections more competitive. The state with the tightest term limits, Michigan, is the only state in the country with 100% of its elections contested, and as for the idea that political experience is more valuable than real world experience, that’s not what we see happening at the state level among rankings of states by fiscal health.
Nick Tomboulides: The states with term limits tend to be clustered toward the top and the states run by career politicians are pretty much at the bottom. I live in Florida. We were ranked number one in fiscal health for I think three consecutive years. We just dropped down to three or four. But it’s okay, we’re beaten by two other term limits states. So the results of the state level have really borne fruit and I think it would have an even bigger impact here in Congress because the political class is even more entrenched.
Ted Cruz: One of the benefits of term limits, I believe, is increasing the diversity of representation. Back in 1995, Edward H. Crane testified to this committee that term limits would increase the number and diversity of Americans choosing to run for Congress. And Dr. Rausch, you testified in particular, that in California, term limits probably speeded up the increase in female and minority representation.
Dr. Rausch: That’s correct.
Ted Cruz: And your testimony also cites an article by Samantha Petty that finds that women are more likely to successfully run for the state legislature in states with term limits. Can you tell us a little bit more about that conclusion?
Nick Tomboulides: I can. There’s really an interesting point to that conclusion. I mean, I would give you the actual percentages but I didn’t memorize them. But it’s interesting that she did find that in… and we find this in other elections as well. Typically, in an open seat election, if it’s between a male candidate and a female candidate and an open seat election, the female candidate has a better chance of winning than a female running against an incumbent. What she found that was particularly interesting and maybe maybe more relevant to our discussion today is that it tended to favor Democratic women versus Republican women. That in an open seat election where the Republican woman was running against a Democratic male in an open seat, the Democratic male was going to win. So there’s it’s a sort of a double edge sword. But definitely it does show that in an open seat election women tend run and tend to win more often.
Ted Cruz: And I guess it’s my understanding that Dr. Petty’s paper also says, quote, this pattern of of women running and prevailing more often, holds for both Republican and Democratic female candidates.
Nick Tomboulides: I’ll have to go back and reread it, but the summary that I saw showed that it… she took the article and she made a blog entry. At the London School of Economics, they have an interesting blog, and maybe she misspoke or missummarized her own article, which I can’t believe, but she had suggested that it does… and maybe she also looked at additional elections too, that that it really favors more Democratic women than it does Republican women. Now also, need to look to see how many Republican women run. That might be the other question.
Ted Cruz: Without objection we’ll enter her full article into the record. It will be part of this committee hearing’s record. Mr. Tomboulides, in your experience, why is there such overwhelming popular support for term limits and why does it cut across party lines? Why does it include not just Republicans, but Independents and Democrats? If in fact Dr. Rausch just testified that term limits produces more women and more minorities in office, why do you see such overwhelming support?
Nick Tomboulides: I think we see such overwhelming and bipartisan support because the American people have largely concluded that powerful incumbents in both parties are basically colluding against them to keep newcomers, to keep fresh faces and ideas out of the political process. I think that’s also leading to a lot of voter apathy in our country. Senator Hirono mentioned earlier finding ways to get more people involved in politics. If elections are a foregone conclusion and 98% of incumbents are going to get returned to office every two years, I think it’s a very fair question to ask, what’s the point? When you have term limits, you are guaranteed a competitive open seat election on a regular basis. Voters are guaranteed more options at the ballot box. It’s more exciting. It’s more in line with what our framers envisioned for how this country should really work. I also think there’s record levels of frustration with Washington DC. We’re now in several decades of an experiment with professional politicians, and by any objective standard, it has failed. Things have gotten much worse here, not better.
Ted Cruz: Thank you. Senator Hirono.
Mazie Hirono: Thank you. Let me ask you, Mr. Tomboulides, I noted some other ways that we can encourage more voter participation, which you just cited as a good thing. Do you support making voting easier in the United States, not Harder?
Nick Tomboulides: Absolutely, Senator.
Mazie Hirono: Do you support making registration as simple as possible?
Nick Tomboulides: I do. Yeah, depending on the details of that proposal.
Mazie Hirono: Well, assuming that they’re all citizens and all that. Do you support stopping unnecessary and discriminatory approaching of voters?
Nick Tomboulides: Absolutely.
Mazie Hirono: Do you support making it easier for people to vote early or allow them to vote by mail?
Nick Tomboulides: I would have to see the specifics of the proposal to give you an answer on that. I would say not all early voting proposals are created equal.
Mazie Hirono: Well, we won’t get into why all of that. I just want to go down this list. So would you condemn discriminatory voter ID laws?
Nick Tomboulides: I am admittedly not an expert in in voter ID laws, so I’m not going to take a position on that right now. I’d have to do more research into that topic. Term limits is more my bailiwick.
Mazie Hirono: But it is your bailiwick that you would like to see more voters participate?
Nick Tomboulides: Correct. Correct.
Mazie Hirono: So would you condemn discriminatory voter ID laws, for example, that identifies a kind of IDs that blacks usually have, that identifies a kind of IDs that students have, and then the voter ID law would specifically require different kinds of IDs for these two groups of voters? Would you condemn that kind of law?
Nick Tomboulides: Senator, I unequivocally condemn all forms of discrimination against all groups, regardless.
Mazie Hirono: So it sounds like you would condemn that kind of a voter ID law?
Nick Tomboulides: If that were indeed the law, yes.
Mazie Hirono: Yes. That is indeed the a concept underlying a lot of the voter ID laws. Would you condemn partisan gerrymandering?
Nick Tomboulides: Absolutely.
Mazie Hirono: Do you think we should enact a law to reverse the Shelby County decision that that eviscerated the voting rights act?
Nick Tomboulides: I’m not a 100% familiar with that specific decision.
Mazie Hirono: It did eviscerate the voting rights act. Do you think we should counter election fraud such as what we saw in North Carolina?
Nick Tomboulides: Senator, I think in debating the merits of a proposal for congressional term limits, while there may be other ideas out there that also have merit, that does not obviate the need to impose term limits on Congress. I mean 82% of Americans want term limits on Congress and I believe that’s the reason why we’re here today.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, I think I was the only one up there without a PhD among the four people on the panel, so I tried to talk with common sense that every person watching can understand. So that’s why I think I stood out a little bit more, maybe in a good way, depending on your perspective. But when Hirono started asking me this really weird line of questioning. It had nothing to do with term limits.
Philip Blumel: I couldn’t believe it. What was she even talking about?
Nick Tomboulides: She was talking about all kinds of other voting stuff. I’m sure some of which has a lot of merit. And I’m looking over at Cruz the entire time like, what’s going on? Why is she asking me about this? Could you possibly step in and maybe say something? And he wasn’t. So at one point I just said to her, senator, let’s stay on topic. This is a hearing about term limits. We’re here because 82% of Americans want this and we really shouldn’t be discussing these other issues. It’s like if I’m here to tell you about the evils of heart disease and you start asking me questions about how Lupus is also bad, that doesn’t mean heart disease stops being important. It’s just really bad logic, and I think she was kind of making the case for term limits with her actions. I decided to let her go on for a few minutes instead of responding in kind because I wanted to let the viewers see how their tax dollars are being wasted on this frivolity and the circus of the Senate.
Philip Blumel: I sort of felt like that she, like the other senators, it didn’t show up, didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to talk about term limits. She hardly said anything about term limits the whole afternoon. She really just kept wanting to bring up these other subjects. Very interesting.
Nick Tomboulides: She was pretty quiet about it, but I will tell you that during my main testimony I was looking directly at her for a majority of the time and I could almost see in her eyes that she kind of agreed with me in a weird way.
Philip Blumel: Interesting.
Nick Tomboulides: But she was kind of like nodding a little bit when I was discussing all the problems with Washington, but having been there for as long as she’s been there, I think maybe 30 years, she’s not able to admit it, right? Because it cuts against her own self interest and cuts against the self interest of her colleagues, and therein lies the problem with trying to get term limits out of Congress, that they basically have a conflict of interest. It’s not going to happen unless the states apply some pressure and we continue to advocate all over the country.
Scott Tillman: Hi, this is Scott Tillman, the National Field Director with US Term Limits. Mississippi is a state that has odd year elections for state legislature. We asked the candidates and those races to sign a pledge to help us term limit congress. The pledge reads, “I pledge that as a member of the state legislature, I will co-sponsor vote for and defend the resolution applying for an article five convention for the sole purpose of enacting term limits on Congress.” We had eight Mississippi candidates sign the pledge this week. We now have 37 candidates in Mississippi who have pledged to support congressional term limits. If you have access to a candidate, please ask them to sign our pledge. Pledges are available at termlimits.com.
Philip Blumel: Okay, let’s continue to listen to some of the hearing. This is the wrap up with Senator Cruz and others. Roll it.
Ted Cruz: I will note that problem you’re highlighting was recently underscored by a report that showed of the exiting members of Congress from the last Congress, I believe in excess of 60% of them, went to become lobbyists. That in turn prompted a democratic freshmen house member, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, to tweet out to the world that she favored a lifetime ban on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists. To which I promptly retweeted and said, “I agree.” Let’s work together. That had some interesting reactions in the Twitter world, but, but I have long advocated a lifetime ban for members of Congress becoming lobbyists for the same reason that I support term limits because both are ways to address the culture of corruption, bipartisan corruption in Washington.
Mazie Hirono: We finally agree. That’s a really positive end to this hearing.
Ted Cruz: Well, that is a fabulous thing. We are working actually with Representative Ocasio-Cortez. We’ll see if we have bipartisan legislation on that, but that would be good. But let me ask Mr. Tomboulides, a final question. So the amendment I’ve introduced to impose congressional term limits, as I mentioned, it has 14 cosponsors. And as I was looking down the list of co-sponsors, two things stand out. Number one, every single one of those cosponsors was elected in 2010 or more recently. In other words, not a single cosponsor of the amendment was elected prior to 2010. And number two, sadly, of the 14 cosponsors, none of them are Democrats. Now, you’ve testified roughly 70% of democratic voters support term limits, and yet zero Democratic senators are supporting a constitutional term limits amendment. Why do you think it is that none of the senators elected before 2010 are willing to support this policy that the overwhelming majority of the American people want, and that none of the Democratic senators are willing to support this policy that the overwhelming majority of democratic voters want?
Nick Tomboulides: So I can’t go entirely into their motivations. But I can imagine for those who were elected before 2010, there is some feeling that they may be viewed as hypocrites if they were to cosponsor this legislation, and that might be a mistaken understanding of the legislation itself. There are two forms of term limits out there. There’s the self term limit, when someone runs for Congress and says, I will voluntarily step down over a certain number of terms. And then there are constitutional term limits. That that is what SJR1, your amendment aims to tackle. A constitutional term limit would apply this term limit across the board to every member of Congress. And there should really be no compunction among more senior members over supporting something like that because they were elected under a different system, they know seniority is the currency here in Washington DC and no one should begrudge them using that currency to its fullest advantage. But what we’re saying, we want to dramatically overhaul the incentives in this place and create an atmosphere of competition and political courage that simply did not exist before.
Nick Tomboulides: With respect to Democrats, I don’t know precisely why they’re not supporting it to a greater extent, but I do say that term limits are very consistent with Democratic ideals, of making elections more fair. Right now, the cost of unseating a house incumbent is pegged at $2.5 million by the Center for Responsive Politics. If you have less than $1 million to your name, your odds of winning a seat in Congress over an incumbent are 2 in 293. So the deck-
Ted Cruz: Just repeat that last sentence.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, yeah. If you have less than $1 million in your campaign account, your odds of unseating a house incumbent are 2 in 293.
Ted Cruz: Wow.
Nick Tomboulides: According to opensecrets.org, Center for Responsive Politics. So incumbents have have essentially rigged the system. They have stacked the deck against outsiders. Congress is a career political class primarily of lawyers and lifelong politicians, and we’re not getting the diversity that our country deserves. Where are the teachers serving in Congress? Where are the doctors? Where are the firefighters? Where are the nurses? I mean, if we had term limits, we would get a true citizen legislature that reflects what our country looks like.
Nick Tomboulides: The video of the testimony we’ve clipped, we’ve put on our Facebook page, I’ve shared it, it’s got 62,000 views. It’s already got over 2000 shares. It’s really resonating with people and the most common comment that I’m hearing, which is really heartening, is thank you for speaking up for me. This is what I’ve thought about Congress for such a a very long time and I’ve never really heard somebody go into Capitol Hill and express my feelings, and I think this is exactly what the swamp needed to hear.
Philip Blumel: I agree.
Nick Tomboulides: So that is so encouraging and I hope that people who are moved by this clip and are moved by this progress are seeing in Washington will consider getting more involved in this movement because we’re really on the cusp of doing something historic here. I truly believe that we’re going to get this done if we continue to build this movement and continue to overwhelm our elected officials with energy and strength and the vision for a better country. So, that’s been good to hear.
Philip Blumel: That’s great. Well, I was moved to and I just want to thank you again, Nick. Great job.
Philip Blumel: (singing)
Philip Blumel: A fire was lit last week in Washington and we need to fan the flames. No matter what state you live in, please go to termlimits.com/SJR1 and send a message to your senators asking them to support SJR1, Senator Cruz’s US Term Limits Amendment Bill. Tell them you watched or listened to the Senate hearings and you want to see SJR1 get a vote. If you see a news story or meme about the hearings, share them with your networks. Also feel free to send us an email at podcast@attermlimits.com and tell us what you think of our podcast. Next week, we’ll share more clips from these historic hearings. Thanks for being part of the team.
Ted Cruz: And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links : “Let’s Go” by The Cars
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Kenn Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)