Philip Blumel:
It came fast and furious. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement for the week of May 25, 2020.
Stacey Selleck:
Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel:
Last week, we reported that almost immediately after the reopening of the Louisiana legislature, the Term Limits Convention Bill sailed unanimously through its first committee. Since then, another amazing thing happened, the bill was sent directly to the House floor and passed the entire Louisiana House. Now the bill is headed to the Senate, where it may also see expedited treatment. What’s going on? Let’s ask, Nick Tomboulides, is executive director of US Term Limits. Hey Nick. Big victory last week. Tell us about it.
Nick Tomboulides:
Huge victory, huge, huge.
Philip Blumel:
Sure is.
Nick Tomboulides:
Louisiana. Break out the beignet’s and the etouffee, I hope I’m pronouncing that right, because-
Philip Blumel:
Close enough.
Nick Tomboulides:
Louisiana is fixing to pass the term limits convention. Last week we got halfway there, the Louisiana State House, they passed the term limits convention in an overwhelming vote, 73 to 14. It was a bipartisan vote. You had 48 out of 56 Republicans vote for it. You had 23 out of 29 Democrats vote for it. Around 80% of Democrats and Republicans voting for this, as well as a couple independents. Passes by an overwhelming margin. It now advances to the State Senate, where it will have a Government Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, May 27th before hopefully moving to the Senate floor and passing the state completely.
Philip Blumel:
Boy, that is exciting, and that’s been quick. We noted how fast it moved through the house, which shocked us. Now we’ve already got the committee assignment in the Senate. Of course it has to be fast, because the session ends on what, June 1st?
Nick Tomboulides:
Yes, the session adjourns June 1st. We’re fast tracked. There’s not a huge agenda for the Senate, so we believe this is going to get heard, but we can’t take anything for granted.
Philip Blumel:
No, that’s for sure.
Nick Tomboulides:
If people are in Louisiana, they want to help, they can go to our website Termlimits.com/LASenate. You can get the updates and you can get an opportunity to send a message to your senators.
Philip Blumel:
One thing that I wanted to ask you about is the importance of the pledges in achieving this. I know this is a state where we worked hard on getting pledges from candidates and from incumbent politicians in the state. We also did a lot of voter education in the last election cycle where we made sure we went out and sent mailers to the voters, letting them know who signed the pledge and who hadn’t. The pledge was central, central to this success. Did the pledge signers pull through and vote for the bill in the House?
Nick Tomboulides:
Yes, absolutely. Every single pledge signer in the House voted for it. We have quite a few. We have a lot of pledge signers in Louisiana. I believe, based on the work that we did last year, around one third of the entire Louisiana legislatures, House and Senate, is pledge signers. Yeah, it was great to see that they kept their word on the floor vote.
Philip Blumel:
Okay. This victory in the House seems like a proof of concept, call it, where we did all the groundwork, went according to plan. Then as soon as the legislature had an opportunity to, they gave us committee assignments, they had the votes, it went to the floor and won, so let’s duplicate this in the Senate. Now, what is it looking like in the Senate? What’s the makeup of the Senate Government Affairs Committee that we’re going to be at next?
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah, so just echoing what you said, it’s been sort of an improbable rise for term limits. You have to remember that the Louisiana Capitol was closed, I think for more than a month due to COVID-19.
Philip Blumel:
Right.
Nick Tomboulides:
The fact that anything is being discussed right now is a small miracle, let alone the term limits convention, but it is moving through. It has the Senate committee hearing and the composition looks pretty good for us. I’ll tell you why, it’s because every committee in the legislature has a chair. Someone who organizes, runs the meeting, and that person is typically the most influential, powerful member on the committee. In this case, the Senate Government Affairs Committee, the chair, Sharon Hewitt is our lead sponsor. Not only is she-
Philip Blumel:
Wonderful.
Nick Tomboulides:
An advocate for term limits, she’s arguably the biggest advocate in the state Senate, the vice chair, a guy named Barry Milligan. He is a Republican who won by a narrow margin in 2019. He’s a freshman, but he actually signed the term limits pledge then, we did voter education in his district. We sent mailers out to thousands of people in his district to let them know that he was the term limits guy and that the incumbent, who he defeated, has since defeated, was terrible on term limits, refused to sign the pledge. Then Milligan rode that term limits wave into office on the strength of the issue, on the popularity of the issue. It’s looking very good. Obviously we cannot take anything for granted and there are always some surprises in the legislature, but I would say that right now, it’s very promising.
Philip Blumel:
Okay, everyone in Louisiana who’s listening, please, please, please TermLimits.com. Under current actions, you can pull down to the Louisiana Action or go to the website, TermLimits.com/LASenate and let them hear your voice. Fantastic.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah. Can I do a little special shout out too, to somebody?
Philip Blumel:
Please.
Nick Tomboulides:
We know the Louisiana Legislature has term limits on itself, and that’s been helping us a lot here because they already have an understanding of the issue.
Philip Blumel:
Right.
Nick Tomboulides:
There’s no learning curve, so when they talk about term limits for Congress, they already know what it’s all about.
Philip Blumel:
Right.
Nick Tomboulides:
The reason the Louisiana Legislature has term limits is two words; a guy named Rense Johnson, and he was a World War II veteran, and he got term limits passed in Louisiana in 1995 through sheer grit, and I would say determination. He believed in all the things that we believe in: mobilizing volunteers, power of the grass roots, lobbying legislators, using good manners and everything when you do it. He got the Louisiana House and Senate to put term limits for themselves on the ballot, it was a task much like congressional, seemed impossible at the time, but he did it. He passed away five years ago and he is dearly missed, but I just wanted to mention him because everything he pioneered is now a big part of our efforts, including in Louisiana. Thank you, Rense. Also thank you to his daughter, Helen, for helping us as well. If you’re in Louisiana-
Philip Blumel:
Thank you.
Nick Tomboulides:
You want to help, Termlimits.com/LASenate.
Ken Quinn:
Hi, this is Ken Quinn with US Term Limits. Take a guess when it was first suggested to have an Article Five Convention for term limits. You might be thinking maybe 1990s back when term limits was very popular in America, we had 23 States passing laws. Most of that at the ballot box, to put term limits on the members of Congress. 22 States also passed laws, putting term limits on their state legislatures. Also, the Contract with America was pushing term limits. No, it wasn’t the 1990s, so maybe earlier, like maybe the 1890s? Nope. It was even before the 1890s. How about the 1790s? Obviously it couldn’t have been any earlier than that could it? Yes, it could. In fact, the very first time somebody suggested to have an Article Five Convention for term limits was one month after the US Constitution was ratified. N.
Ken Quinn:
Now this comes from a pamphlet written by Tench Coxe, a gentleman from Pennsylvania. He was also a delegate to the Annapolis Convention of 1786. In his pamphlet, called, A Friend of Society and Liberty, dated July 23rd, 1788 he said this, “You have been told also that after the new constitution takes place, the officers under it may become perpetual. Now it is fully and absolutely secured that no representative, senator, president or vice president can continue beyond a stipulated time. If the people think that time too long, they can get their state legislatures to apply for its being shortened. If nine legislatures out of 13 apply this year, or 10 years hence, there must be a convention called to consider the point.” There you have it. Tench Coxe, the first person to suggest an Article Five Convention for term limits.
Ken Quinn:
The best part is what he said at the end of his letter. He said this, “It must therefore be evident to every candidate, man, that two thirds of the states can always procure general convention for the purpose of amending the constitution. That three fourths of them can introduce those amendments into the constitution. Although the president, Senate and Federal House of Representatives should be unanimously opposed to each and all of them.” Well, there you have it. That is a perfect description of what US Term Limits is trying to do. We are advancing the cause that Tench Coxe began in 1788 to have the states propose a term limits amendment for Congress without their consent or approval. Join the Term Limits revolution, go to TermLimits.com and get involved today.
Philip Blumel:
Hey, Nick, another new study has come out that bolsters the case for term limits. This one looks at the representation of women in the Philippines, which is a country that has term limits on their legislature and also on mayors and actually a lot of different positions throughout the country. This is a country that had a very low representation for women, way lower than the global average, which itself is pretty low. I mean, in 2019, about 24% of national legislators around the world are women. Of course, they make up about half the population. This study was done by some researchers at the University of Oxford and at NYU. They found that in the aftermath of the fall of Fernando Marcus’s autocratic regime in the mid-80s, about 9% of women were elected to the Senate and House of Representatives, other similar, almost exact amount, 9% of municipalities had a female mayor. That climbed to 21% by 2010, because of a change made in their 1987 constitution, which put in term limits. Now, this brings to mind a study that we’ve been talking about on our podcast for some time.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I didn’t know, the Philippines had term limits across the board. I would have assumed executive term limits, but you’re saying that it actually applies to many different offices, local mayors and legislators and such.
Philip Blumel:
That’s right.
Nick Tomboulides:
Yeah. A couple of years ago, Samantha Petty, professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Sciences actually looked at the rate of emergence of female candidates for state legislators within the United States. What she found, that the presence or lack of term limits on a state legislature made a very significant difference in determining how many female candidates run. She actually found that the rate of the emergence of female candidates was 33% higher in states with term limits than in states without it. If you are someone who wants to see a more representative government that looks more like society, including the inclusion of more women, than term limits is one way that you get there. It’s interesting to see that they’re finding the same result in the Philippines. That makes two papers released in as many years, showing that term limits create more opportunities for women in elected office.
Philip Blumel:
Sure. It’s clear why that would be the case. If you have an entrenched incumbency that isn’t rolling over and yet you have, in society, the mores changing, the beliefs changing, and there’s more role for women in more and more occupations. Well, why would that show up in the legislature if the membership in the legislature wasn’t allowed to change, right? Having open seats, forced open seats where the incumbent had to leave, provided the opportunity for women to run.
Nick Tomboulides:
Some people have asked, why do term limits specifically help women? I think the answer was given in the last paper on this. It’s very simple. Women are less likely than men to want to be career politicians. They don’t want to do it. The data show us that men as a group prefer a much more linear career path. Let’s say, man wants to be an executive at GE for 30 years, stick with that, or a congressman for 30 years. Whereas for women as a group, on a group basis, it’s about what’s the next challenge? Women like to conquer one thing and then move on to the next challenge. Obviously, that’s sort of generalizing and of course it’s not true for all men or all women, but when you look at it on the group level, much of it holds true. I think it’s true here. I would think two factors explain why term limits empower women. The first is that women are less linear in their career choices. The second though, is that for a long time in politics, women were discriminated against. Women were viewed as support-
Philip Blumel:
Sure.
Nick Tomboulides:
For powerful men in politics, like your Joe Biden’s and your Ted Kennedy’s of the world. Instead of holding the power themselves, they were just viewed as support. It’s awfully hard to catch up when the same senators, the same members of that boys’ club are still running the show today, because we have no term limits. Hundreds of thousands of people with bright ideas who could have made a difference regardless of gender, they’re all denied opportunities by the system that we have. By the status quo. Term limits is a great fix for that. Term limits is a great way of creating opportunity for so many people, nontraditional candidates, political outsiders, such as women, who otherwise wouldn’t have the chance. It’s not because they’re not qualified it’s because these incumbents have rigged the system.
Philip Blumel:
That’s it. Of course, although they’re not covered in either of these two studies were discussing, the same principle applies to issues of race and also of age. Just the fact that young people are denied a chance to get involved in the system.
Nick Tomboulides:
Career politicians, they love capitalizing on the energy of young people. Like I said, they want them just close enough to the political process to help their campaigns, but never so close that they can take their jobs.
Philip Blumel:
Right, right.
Nick Tomboulides:
I just also want to make a comment quickly, and this is sort of related to this. This is about the appearance that I had in front of Congress, maybe about a year ago now. My comments there, they were very well received by most people. However, there was one line that a few people thought was controversial. That was when I described Congress as disproportionately old, rich, white and male. People thought I was saying there’s something wrong with white males. Not at all. I am a white male, but my point was that the House of Representatives is supposed to be representative. That it’s supposed to look like America. John Adams said, “A legislature is the portrait of the people, but in miniature.” He said, “It should think like them, look like them, act/reason like them.” I think part of that means you have diversity. I don’t mean forced diversity, like you must have this number of women or African Americans or whatever, but allowing the people to choose their government through fair elections. That would definitely change the way Congress looks, because it would open up opportunities for people who didn’t have a chance before.
Philip Blumel:
Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. We’ve been reporting on how US Term Limits has redirected its efforts during this period of shutdown to collecting pledges from legislators in preparation for next year’s legislative sessions. In which we will, once again, be in the nation’s capitals, pushing term limits convention bills. Are you on Facebook? If so, you can help. Every candidate for the State Legislature in the USA has received a copy of the US Term Limits Pledge and is being called and emailed by US Term Limits staffers and volunteers to sign and return that pledge. That pledge says that, “Yes, I’ll support the term limits convention bill.”
Philip Blumel:
Please help us apply public pressure to get them to sign. Go to TermLimits.com/GetPledgesonFB. There, you will find instructions on how to determine who your state legislators are, who is opposing them in the primaries. Then later in the general elections, and then for each candidate, you’ll see a link for their Facebook campaign page. They all have one. Go to their Facebook page and post a short comment and question, something like, “We need competitive elections and better representation. Do you support term limits for the US Congress?” If they answer back, yes, send them the link to pledge and ask them to sign. The pledge, the links, the instructions, everything can be found at TermLimits.com/GetPledgesonFB. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck:
The revolution isn’t being televised. Fortunately, you have the No Uncertain Terms podcast.