INTRO MUSIC : “9:30 May 2” by The Minutemen
Philip Blumel: Breakthrough in the U.S. House. Hi, this is Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement, for the week of July 1, 2019.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: In the states, the votes for an Article V Term Limits Convention, not to mention polls, and referenda to term limits mayors, and city councils, and everything else, have been bipartisan affairs, but in polarized Washington, D.C., career politicians are playing their usual partisan games.
Philip Blumel: Something happened this week, in the capitol, that suggests the ice is beginning to crack. If U.S. Term Limits Executive Director Nick Tomboulides doesn’t have anything to say about it, I just might. Hey Nick.
Philip Blumel: Well, I guess the top news this week, in the Term Limits world, is we have a couple of new co-sponsors in the U.S. House, for the U.S. Term Limits Amendment bill, which is always exciting. We have Joe Cunningham from South Carolina, and Lori Trahan from Massachusetts. Both young, both new to the U.S. Congress, and both Democrats, and now both new to Pat Rooney’s term limits bill.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, give them time. They’ll be corrupted. Just kidding.
Philip Blumel: Well, yeah.
Nick Tomboulides: Just kidding.
Philip Blumel: Half kidding. Half kidding.
Nick Tomboulides: Or am I?
Philip Blumel: So far, so good. I know Joe Cunningham, he followed up Mark Sanford in that seat. Mark Sanford was definitely a term limits believer, who term limited himself, and lived up to his self-limit, also was a pledge signer, and also was on the term limits bills when he was in the Congress. He was a true believer, and I guess that’s something he spoke about in his district a lot. Following behind him, Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, whereas Mark Sanford was Republican, and Joe is following in his footsteps. In fact, Joe, actually, during the 2016 campaign, ran a television ad espousing term limits. Let’s hear that.
Joe Cunningham: Do you start your day nervous to look at the news? Does watching all the dishonesty, incompetence, and partisanship in Washington make your blood boil? Same here, so I’m running for Congress. I’m Joe Cunningham, construction attorney, ocean engineer, and a new dad.
Joe Cunningham: I believe in term limits, that both parties need new leadership, and I’m not taking any corporate PAC money, because I want to serve you, no one else. I’m Joe Cunningham, and I approve this message.
Philip Blumel: Pretty good.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah. The major takeaway with this, is it’s now a bipartisan bill, right?
Philip Blumel: Right.
Nick Tomboulides: This has been an all Republican bill, even though it’s clearly not an all Republican issue. It’s a very bipartisan issue, but for a while, Republicans have monopolized the bill in Congress. They’ve controlled the Senate for five years. They had controlled the House for about nine years. When you file a bill, it usually gets filed by somebody in the majority party, so I think that led to a lot of partisanship, and muddying the waters a little bit, but it’s good to see that these two are willing to defy their leadership
Philip Blumel: Both at the same time, which is interesting too.
Nick Tomboulides: How do you move up in Washington? We’ve emphasized this over and over again. You get on your knees, you kiss the rings of leadership, you go to the call center, you raise money for them five hours a day, and then you pray to God that they might put you on a committee in 12 years. This is really cool, because they’re ruffling feathers, they’re rattling cages, they’re defying the party elite, and the party bosses, and they’re listening to the voters. It’s a beautiful thing. Since the hearing we had in the Senate, we’ve actually got six new sponsors on the U.S. Term Limits Amendment.
Philip Blumel: Wow. Wow. That is clearly related, in some way, to the fact that we had the first hearing on term limits, that we’ve had in the Congress for 20 years. There’s no question these things aren’t connected.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah. It’s an amazing wake up call to them, and they realize it can’t be a Republican issue anymore, because 76% of Democrats want it to happen. Democrats’, I think, control of Congress, has been kind of a pendulum over the last few decades. You can’t ignore 76% of your voters for that long, and expect to live to tell about it. So, it’s good that at least a few of them, in some of these swing districts, are beginning to listen.
Philip Blumel: You bring up a really good point about bipartisanship. That’s why this is really a breakthrough week for us. One, new sponsors, second, new Democratic sponsors. Now, you and I have been involved in this fight a long time. We’re used to bipartisan term limits fights.
Philip Blumel: First of all, the polling is bipartisan. A lot of the votes that we’re involved in at the state level, for the Term Limits Convention, in these legislatures, and in their committees, they’re bipartisan, for the most part. Certainly, anywhere that term limits are being put on the ballot by the voters, we see bipartisan votes for term limits, but at the federal level in Congress, that’s really not what we’ve been seeing with these bills.
Nick Tomboulides: Yeah, you’re 100% right, and I’ll give you some examples. Here in Florida, we passed the floor of the House and Senate unanimously, but when we were in the committee process, it was a Democrat, back in the day, couple of years ago, Senator Geraldine Thompson of Orlando, who saved us.
Nick Tomboulides: In Utah, when we passed the Utah House, we had a higher percentage of the Democratic Caucus voting for us then of the Republican caucus.
Nick Tomboulides: You even see it at the municipal level. Here in Jacksonville, Florida, when we saved Jacksonville’s term limits two years ago, it was two Democrats, Tommy Hazouri and John Crescimbeni, who actually led the charge to save the eight year term limits, against a Republican who is trying to repeal it.
Nick Tomboulides: So, you’re right, we see bipartisanship across the board, at every single level of government, except at the federal level. So, the question is, what’s the matter with Democrats at the federal level? What do you think is going on?
Philip Blumel: Well, there’s certainly more than one thing, but I think the number one issue with this, in Washington, is a sort of a historical accident. In 1994, the Republicans had their greatest Congressional win, probably of the last generation or two. The Republicans had been out of the majority in the House for about 40 years, and in 1994, they came up with what they called the Contract with America, written by the Representative Newt Gingrich, and Dick Army.
Philip Blumel: They came with this contract. It was a list of several things, but the centerpiece of it was term limits. With this in hand, it was signed by almost every single incumbent Republican in the House, and every single challenger and candidate running for the Congress, on the Republican side. It was a Republican deal, and they won on it. They took power, they won 54 House seats, they won nine Senate seats. They really helped stoke the fire, the excitement for term limits, and they won on this issue. I think that, that moment really attached the Republican label to term limits until now, until today.
Nick Tomboulides: Not the first problem started when a very ambitious career politician had an idea he thought was a little bit clever. That was Newt Gingrich, as you mentioned. He was elected to Congress in 1979. He didn’t come up with this until 1994, so he had 15 years to do something about term limits, just sat there twiddling his thumbs, whoop-de-do.
Nick Tomboulides: He was a Republican leader in the House going into that election, so he publishes this. It was basically a list of promises Republicans were making to the American people, bills they said they would vote on, and that they would accomplish on day one.
Nick Tomboulides: One of them was term limits. In my opinion, I don’t think Gingrich had any intent to actually pass it. He just wanted Republicans to get swept into office, riding this wave, and then toss the term limits into the dumpster.
Nick Tomboulides: So, once the moment of truth arrived, Congress did not in fact pass term limits, but the movement had been forever damaged, because he weaponized the issue. He wrapped it in a big red blanket, and tried to make it a partisan deal. They picked up 54 House seats. They picked up eight Senate seats. The Democrats never forgot that. Those wounds never healed, and they branded this a Republican issue.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s been 25 years since that happened, but in politics, people are very bitter, and they have very good memories. They hold grudges. A lot of the same people who got mad in the 1990s, about Gingrich, are still in Washington today. They’re even older, and more bitter, and angry, than they were before.
Philip Blumel: Yeah. It’s evidence of the politically partisan nature of why they chose the issue, that after they won in 1994, Dick Armey clumsily suggested that, well we really don’t need them as much anymore, now that the Republicans are in power, and can fix these problems. Of course, these problems were not fixed.
Nick Tomboulides: Right.
Philip Blumel: So, it was a very exciting time as it was occurring, but then, almost immediately after the victory of the Republicans, it was very clear we were not going to get term limits, and we didn’t.
Philip Blumel: The thing is, that breaks my heart about it, is that there’s so many reasons why term limits should appeal to the Democratic side, and of course does at different levels of government. Term limits, at heart, are an issue of fairness, and of giving citizens a leverage against entrenched elites.
Philip Blumel: I mean, because term limits are no respecter of privilege. They’ve resulted in greater diversity in the legislatures, and not just in terms of resumes, like different occupations and that, but of gender and race too, which is of unique importance to Democrats, and they limit the power of corporate lobbyists.
Philip Blumel: I mean, there’s a long list of reasons why Democrats should be running on this issue, and in fact, what you might want to start with is the fact is, “hey, look, these Republicans promised you the term limits that you want, and they didn’t deliver.” I think we need a Democrat coming out of the corner with that kind of message right there.
Nick Tomboulides: Exactly.
Philip Blumel: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, as Chair of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, and the chief sponsor of SJR1, the U.S. term limits amendment bill, held historic hearings earlier this month on Congressional term limits, for the first time in 20 years. Cruz’s introductory remarks set the stage for an afternoon of testimony and debate, including testimony from U.S. Term Limits Executive Director, Nick Tomboulides, which you heard on last week’s podcast.
Ted Cruz: Let me begin by thanking all of you for attending, and thanking Senator Hirono for working with me and my staff, to convene this hearing, and bring these witnesses together. The topic before us, is one I believe of great importance, the need for term limits for members of Congress, so that we can begin to fix what is broken here in Washington politics.
Ted Cruz: Before I introduce our first panel, I’d like to explain why we’ve organized today’s hearing. The 2016 election, the American people made a resounding call to drain the swamp that is modern Washington, and sadly, this is a bipartisan problem. The American people have lost confidence in Washington, and especially in Congress, and it isn’t hard to see why.
Ted Cruz: Enmeshed in back room deals, and broken promises, our capitol has too often become a political playground for the powerful, and the well-connected, for members of the permanent political class looking to accumulate more and more power, at the expense of American taxpayers.
Ted Cruz: As part of his promise to drain the swamp, President Trump strongly endorsed, and campaigned, on passing Congressional term limits. Though our founders didn’t include term limits in the Constitution, they feared the creation of a permanent political class, that existed parallel to, rather than within American society.
Ted Cruz: As Benjamin Franklin observed, “In free governments, the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors. For the former, therefore, to return among the latter, was not to degrade, but to promote them.”
Ted Cruz: The fears of the Framers, have today been realized. Today, the swamp is hard at work, picking winners and losers, with hardworking Americans typically winding up on the losing end.
Ted Cruz: Every year, Congress spends billions of dollars on giveaways for the well-connected. Washington insiders get taxpayer money, members of Congress get reelected, and the system works for everyone except the American people.
Ted Cruz: This kind of self-interest builds on itself, as members spend more and more time in office. In an age in which the partisan divide seem intractable, it is remarkable that public support for Congressional term limits remains strong, across party lines.
Ted Cruz: In poll after poll, conducted over decades, Americans who are Republicans, who are Democrats, who are Independents, Americans who are conservatives, who are liberals, who are moderates, who are men, who are women, who are Anglo American, who are African American, who are Hispanic, all support term limits by overwhelming margins.
Ted Cruz: For example, a 2018 McLaughlin & Associates poll found that 82% of Americans support term limits for Congress, including 89% of Republicans, but also 76% of Democrats support term limits. 83% of Independents support term limits, 72% of Hispanics support term limits, and 70% of African Americans support term limits.
Ted Cruz: Indeed, the one group, it seems in America, that doesn’t support term limits, are career politicians here in Washington. Everybody else recognizes the problem. A 2016 Rasmussen poll showed much the same thing, as did a 2013 Gallup poll. These results have been consistent year, after year, after year.
Ted Cruz: Ending that dynamic of Congress enriching insiders, and using those insiders to hold onto powers, favors neither party. It’s not a problem of just Republicans, or just Democrats. Restoring confidence and accountability in Congress shouldn’t be the business of just one party, or of just this committee, or even of just the Senate. It concerns all Americans, whatever your politics. So, why hasn’t Congress acted already?
Ted Cruz: It’s straightforward. Too many career politicians don’t want to restrict their own power, and neither party wants to act on its own. Still, the American people recognize that Congressional term limits would help fix the brokenness and corruption fostered by career politicians in Washington today.
Ted Cruz: At our founding, representatives left their homes, their farms, their businesses. They traveled to Washington to represent their constituents. They served in Congress for a time, but usually returned to their homes, and their affairs. Leaders like George Washington, and John Adams, and James Madison, reached the height of political power, and then relinquished it to return to private life.
Ted Cruz: Today, members of Congress aren’t doing that. Instead, far too many of our politicians come to Washington to stay. Too much of Washington’s business is dictated by career politicians, by bureaucrats, and by lobbyists who spend time as one or the other.
Ted Cruz: The rise of political careerism in modern Washington is a sharp departure from what the founders intended in our federal governing bodies. To effectively drain the swamp, and to end the phenomenon of career politicians, it is long past time to enact term limits for Congress.
Ted Cruz: I am the author of a Constitutional Amendment that would limit U.S. Senators to two six-year terms, and would limit members of the House of Representatives to three two-year terms. At this point, we currently have 14 co-sponsors in the Senate. It is my hope that this hearing today will help explain why we should come together, Republicans and Democrats, across party lines, to enact term limits to protect the American people.
Ted Cruz: The Senate, I believe, should take up and vote on the term limits amendment that I’ve introduced. If Congress will simply listen to the American people, to the overwhelming majorities, across party lines, that want to see term limits, which we have for the President, see term limits also for Congress, then we can rest confidence that the states would quickly ratify that amendment. The only impediment is the United States Congress, and I hope that this hearing, and the panel that we have today, the two panels, will help move that discussion forward.
Ted Cruz: (singing).
Scott Tillman: Hi, this is Scott Tillman, the National Field Director with U.S. Term Limits. On June 17th, Nick Tomboulides testified about Congressional term limits in Washington, DC. Following his testimony, six new members have co-sponsored House Joint Resolution 20, for term limits: Mo Brooks from Alabama, Russ Fulcher from Idaho, Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, Steve Chabot from Ohio, Joe Cunningham from South Carolina, and Laurie Trahan from Massachusetts.
Scott Tillman: We now have 43 sponsors and cosponsors on HJR 20. Please contact your representative, and ask them to sign our pledge, and to cosponsor HJR 20. Pledges are available@termlimits.com
Philip Blumel: That makes me want to bring up another point, is that I don’t want to overplay this idea of the partisan split on term limits, because most of our co-sponsors of our legislation in Congress have been Republicans, so we’re all excited because we have a few Democrats now. That’s fantastic, and I believe it is a breakthrough, and it’s very important, and it shows something very positive happening, but the Republicans that we have are also minority of the Republicans. So, we’re really talking about a minority of the Republicans supporting us on this, and a minority of Democrats supporting us with this in the Congress. It’s just that we have more Republicans than Democrats. The leadership for both the Democrats and Republicans are against this.
Nick Tomboulides: By the way, a lot of the people who sponsored the term limits bill in DC, they might even be against us. We don’t know. They might be doing it just out of cynical political calculus, but that’s okay. We’re okay with having people do the right thing for the wrong reason. If they vote for term limits, because they’re scared they’re going to be thrown out on their asses if they don’t do it, and we get term limits as a result of instilling that fear in so many people, I’m cool with that. I’m cool with them not really believing in it, just do the right thing.
Nick Tomboulides: It’s like when I was talking to Mazie Hirono, I guess I probably needed a dry erase board, and some fluorescent markers, to spell it out for her. I was citing the Democratic polling, and I wanted to say, “Senator, you’re a Democrat, do something about this. Your own voters want you to do something about this,” and she was just kind of numb to that. But, I really don’t think we can overlook this grassroots energy that’s bubbling up under the surface, and the potential it has to really make these legislators feel some pain, if they don’t do the right thing soon.
Philip Blumel: Do you think that the issue gets treated differently by the media at the national level, than it does at the state and local level? Could that be part of this also?
Nick Tomboulides: I think it does. I’m not a media commentator, but off the cuff, I’ll tell you, I think the local media and the state media, local news channels for example, are a lot more objective. They just want to know the facts of the story, and they just want to get those out to the readers, or to the listeners, or the viewers, and they don’t really want to inject any kind of partisan editorial slant, for the most part.
Nick Tomboulides: National media is very different. National media are a very fierce ratings-obsessed … It’s almost like a battle. It’s like a partisan battle. It kind of reflects the partisanship in Washington, D.C., where both sides have divided into their camps, and they’ve formed these little cliques, where they circle the wagons, and they just try to get the other party in trouble.
Nick Tomboulides: You watch MSNBC, it’s all about how Donald Trump is evil. You Watch Fox News, it’s all about how every Democrat is a socialist, wants to destroy America. So, there’s very little room, I think, for a bipartisan issue to break through in that context, because we don’t fit the narrative. We’re an issue that brings people together. We don’t divide Americans, and the power brokers who run the national media have decided that dividing Americans is what’s best for business.
Philip Blumel: Yeah, they’re team players. They’re on a team. I mean, there’s no question that Fox News is associated with a certain party, and that CNN and MSNBC are associated with certain party. Everyone can see this. So, I think that might be the same divide that’s occurring between some of the politicians in Washington, occur with their teams.
Nick Tomboulides: You mentioned teams. Reminds me of a story about Paul Jacob, who’s on our Board of Directors, but he used to hold my position during the ’90s. He was Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits. One time, he was putting pressure on a Congressman who was not keeping his word, honoring his term limits pledge. The Congressman called, angrily demanding to know, “Why? Why Paul, are you not a team player? Why are we Republicans not sticking together? We’re supposed to have each other’s backs,” and Paul’s answer was amazing. He said, “Congressman, I’m a team player, but the team I’m on is term limits. It’s not Republican or Democrat. I serve the people. I serve fixing this broken system.”
Philip Blumel: Good work, Paul, as usual.
Philip Blumel: (singing).
Philip Blumel: Thank you for joining us again this week. We’re still feeling the shockwave from the Senate hearings on SJR1. Nick’s testimony has gone viral on YouTube and Twitter. We’re being drowned in inquiries, as Freedom Works is helping spread the word even further.
Philip Blumel: Now is the time for action. Please go to termlimits.com/sjr1 and sign a petition demanding a vote on this legislation. This is a new petition, so if you’ve already contacted your Senator, please do it again. Professional Washington wants to pretend nothing happened in June, 2019, we can’t let them get away with it. Thanks for your help. Come back next week, and bring some friends, but first, take a break this week, to celebrate the first American Revolution.
Philip Blumel: (singing).
Nick Tomboulides: It’s always a rough experience to listen to politicians talk for four hours, but I wanted to see if term limits got any sort of mention. It was mentioned once, and you will not believe who brought it up.
Philip Blumel: It’s got to be Beto O’Rourke.
Nick Tomboulides: Wrong. Think older and more socialist. Bernie, last night, was the one who brought it up. He said we need term limits. Not for himself, of course, he’s not going to go for that, but for Supreme Court justices.
Philip Blumel: Okay, term limits on others. Next, maybe we’ll move to term limits for him. Okay. Well, we’re moving the right direction here.
Nick Tomboulides: Term limits for thee, but not for me, that’s what I like to call it.
Nick Tomboulides: We are limiting Supreme Court justices, not members of Congress, because I’m a member of Congress, and that would be unfair to me. I want to be here forever. I enjoy this position. It’s very good. They have excellent cornmeal in the Congressional cafeteria, and I don’t want to give it up.
Philip Blumel: Very good.
MUSIC CREDITS – Full versions of the music sampled during this podcast may be purchased via iTunes at the following links : “9:30 May 2” by The Minutemen, “Here Come Cowboys” by Psychedelic Furs
The “No Uncertain Terms” podcast is produced by Kenn Decter for U.S. Term Limits
Executive Producer Philip Blumel (President, U.S. Term Limits)
