We’ve got great news, in Oklahoma, the State Senate overwhelmingly passed congressional term limits resolution 1032 with a vote of 31 to 11. Oklahoma is a huge win for US term limits, and for the 82% of the public who support congressional term limits. Oklahoma co-sponsor State Senator Michael Bergstrom said it best, with the passage of this resolution, Oklahoma takes the lead in bringing term limits to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, the vast majority of Oklahomans support term limits, so that the entrenched power brokers can be sent packing. Hi I’m Holly Robichaud, and this is breaking news with Term Limits.
A special thank you goes out to State Representative Jon Echols and State Senator Micheal Bergstrom for making a reality in Oklahoma. According to a recent RMG poll in Oklahoma, 73% of likely voters support term limits on Congress. Let’s hope other states follow Oklahoma’s lead and join the effort to bypass Congress to get congressional term limits. Now it’s time for our update from DC. So what’s happening in Washington? Momentum continues to build for our HJRes.11, sponsored by Representative Roth Norman of South Carolina. The resolution known as US Term Limits Amendment now has 97 sponsors, and counting… We’re close to getting 100. Will we make it next week? You’ll have to stay tuned. Joining this week as co-sponsors are Texas represented Ronny Jackson, Oklahoma’s representative, Stephanie Bice, representative Andrew Ogles of Tennessee, Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee and Monica De La Cruz of Texas. We’re well on our way to 100 co-sponsors. And as you know, it’s bipartisan support. Democratic representatives, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Jared Golden of Maine, Greg Landsman of Ohio, and Eric Sorensen of Illinois are all co-sponsors and we are happy to have them on board. I often mention that we have HJres.11 in Congress, but we’ve also got a companion Bill, a resolution filed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, that is SJRes.2.
We thank Senator Cruz for his efforts in the United States Senate. As you know, we’re working in the States to bypass Congress to get congressional term limits, so a lot of people have been asking, if we get all these resolutions passed in the state, how does his work? Much of the media and the special interest groups are working over time to discredit term limits and our sponsors by saying that they’ve served longer than what US Term Limits Amendment calls for. So let me tell you how it works. If passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states, what would happen is representatives would be limited to three terms or six years, and senators to two terms or 12 years. It’s not designed to be retroactive, it only goes into effect once ratified by the required three-fourths of the states. Only then would we get term limits on all members of Congress. And now it’s time for the corrupt politician of the week. This week, Georgia representative, Austin Scott makes our list. Austin Scott was first elected to Congress in 2010. As you can imagine, he’s no friend to term limits, and he’s not a co-sponsor of our HJRes.11.
Scott has been a successful stock trader while serving in Congress, he bought a thousand shares of FuelCell Energy at $2 a share in October of 2020, then he sold some of those shares in December of 2020 at a price of $13.42 a share. That’s a 571% increase. He sold the remainder of the shares in January 2021 at a price of $7.60 a share. That’s a 780% increase. Pretty good. The website, Unusual Whales follows congressional stock trading and has created a page on Scott’s stock trades. He’s also been cited for being late in reporting transactions his wife has conducted. Serving in Congress is about serving the people, not enriching one self. This is why we need term limits, don’t you agree? Did you know that US Term Limits is the largest by partisan grassroots term limits advocacy group in the nation. We connect term limits supporters with their legislators. We work to pass term limits at all levels of government, especially Congress.
In a follow-up story about California Senator, Dianne Feinstein, aged 89. She’s been out of the Senate for over a month due to health issues. Now because of her absence, work on the Senate judiciary committee is effectively at a stand still until either she returns to the Senate or resigns her seat. Senator Feinstein was first elected in 1992 and has two years remaining on her term. Major outlets such as Politico are reporting that she may never return to the Senate, but she will not resign and remain in office, which will mean that work on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and indeed the Senate itself could be at a standstill for two years. We wish Senator Feinstein a speedy recovery, but the story demonstrates why we need term limits.
Now it’s time for the update from the States. Oklahoma, as I mentioned in the beginning of the program, has passed their resolution. Oklahoma now joins Florida, Alabama, Missouri, West Virginia and Wisconsin in calling for congressional term limits. In Maine, legislation has been introduced in both the State House and the State Senate, and we look forward to their progress. In North Dakota State legislatures were defeated in their attempt to overturn the recently passed term limits for state legislators and the Governor. It was defeated, 41 to 5. This was an attempted unconstitutional power grab by a few legislators to undo the will of North Dakota voters. Last November, voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment that set term limits for state legislators and the governor. We’d like to congratulate Jared Hendrix in North Dakota for term limits in preventing this from happening. Good work.
Had enough of politicians not listening? Let’s make congressional term limits a reality. We need your help, please get involved today by going to termlimits.org and signing up to be a volunteer. We have tons of activities and we need your help and be sure to share this program with your friends every week. This is Holly Robichaud for US Term Limits Breaking News. I’ll be back to you next week.