Holly Robichaud: Momentum continues to build for Congressional Term limits. This week, the Oklahoma House Rules Committee passed House Joint Resolution 1032 by a vote of 8-2, that’s right, 8-2. This puts Congress on notice that Oklahoma wants to join the other states in calling for a convention to propose Congressional Term Limits. Hi, I’m Holly Robichaud and this is Breaking News on Term Limits, and we have a lot of exciting news for you in this episode.
[music]Holly Robichaud: What’s happening in DC this week? Well, I’m pleased to report House Joint Resolution, which is sponsored by Ralph Norman, is gaining lots of momentum. We are now up to 77 co-sponsors. This week joining us is Eric Sorensen of Illinois. Greg Landsman of Ohio, Anthony D’Esposito from New York, Richard McCormick from Georgia, Pete Sessions from Texas, Mike Flood from Nebraska, and Mark Green from Tennessee. We’re pleased that they have all joined on board with calling for Congressional Term Limits. As you know, we’re working hard to bypass Congress in order to get Congressional Term Limits. Well, we’ve got some good news coming out of North Carolina this week. As I previously mentioned, North Carolina’s House Speaker Tim Moore is sponsoring House Joint Resolution 151, and he’s very optimistic about our chances on North Carolina joining the effort. This week, he was on Salem News Channel discussing our efforts, check it out.
Andrew Wilkow: All right, my next guest is Tim Moore, he is the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, good to get you on.
Tim Moore: It’s great to be with you today.
AW: All right, so let’s talk about your effort to add… To amend the Constitution, I guess, to add term limits for the House and the Senate. I don’t disagree with the effort at all, that if you were asking me, I’d say maybe two terms in the Senate, six terms in the house, nobody needs to be there more than 12 years, what do you got?
TM: Well, what we’re, of course we’re proposing is…
AW: Article five, love it.
TM: To amend the United States Constitution to put in place term limits for Congress because we have to have that. Americans want it, and we have to bring about change and look, we’re seeing the absolute mess that’s happening right now in Washington, the runaway spending, runaway government and folks are tired of it.
AW: I don’t think it advantages anyone, this is not a conservative versus progressive thing. If someone’s in government for 50 years, they’re gonna end up being a pariah somewhere down the line. We have 300 something million people, you’re telling me the same 435 people are gonna run the show forever?
TM: Well, exactly, you need…
AW: Or 535.
TM: You need turnover, you need new ideas. And as a state legislator, we’re part-time. I think as state legislators, we get paid $13,000 a year so hardly anyone is doing that as a full-time job. And part of the problem though are full-time professional politicians in Washington where that is in fact their career. And folks should be public servants, exactly, that go to serve, serve the public for a limited period of time, and then go back home and live under the rules that have been passed and pay the taxes that are imposed.
AW: I don’t disagree with any of that. And you know what, some of these people, Republican and Democrat think the world only turns because they’re at the table and some of them will literally stay there till they die. [laughter] Quite literally but the problem is also they use their position to build constituents and groups and they funnel grant money or this money or that money to get reelected. If they weren’t even allowed to sit there that long, they wouldn’t even have time to build up that kind of ubiquitous constituency block that always gets them reelected.
TM: Well, that’s exactly it and what happens is you find that special interest groups from this group or that group, right, left, it doesn’t matter, tend to dominate the narrative and the ordinary, working American who’s trying to pay their bills, raise their family, keep government out of their lives is often forgotten by the wayside there and I think it is just, it is if you poll people, they’ll tell you that these should not be lifetime careers for anyone.
AW: I would say to any young progressive or conservative, I would say it to progressives, really, if you think you’re getting new ideas from the same old people, you’re wrong.
TM: Well, 100%. When you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, that’s the definition of insanity.
HR: We have some breaking news coming outta North Carolina this evening. The North Carolina House of Representatives just passed a resolution 70-47. North Carolina is on its way to joining the growing list of states that are calling for Congressional Term Limits.
[music]HR: So I’m so glad to have Sarah Hart Weir joining us today, she is our Kansas Chair, and we wanted to talk with her today about what’s happening in Kansas and why she supports term limits. Thank you, Sarah, for joining us.
Sarah Hart Weir: Well, Holly, thanks so much for having me, excited to be on and give you a quick update on what’s happening in Kansas.
HR: Great, so first wanna ask you, why do you support term limits?
SW: Holly, I believe we need a new generation of leaders and true leaders let others lead and it’s time for those that have been governing and those that have been leading for decades on end step aside and let this new generation step up to the plate and lead for our country not only in Washington, but in state capitals across the country. I believe term limits is the only solution to give us that voice.
HR: Yeah, I agree with you. Okay, what’s happening in Kansas?
SW: So, there’s a lot of momentum in Kansas, especially obviously in our state capital in Topeka. We had some action in our Kansas House on federal and state affairs in that particular committee. That committee passed a resolution essentially calling for states to propose a Congressional Term Limit amendment to the US Constitution, that legislation was led by State Representative Bill Sutton, and it actually passed from a vote of 13-9. So we are now pushing for that action to be taken up by the entire State House.
HR: So you think it’s gonna be happening anytime soon?
SW: We hope so. We’re definitely ensuring that we have a good ground game that state reps and state senators from both sides of the aisle are hearing from us, hearing from the leadership at US Term Limits. And of course this is something that is near and dear to my heart. So as Chair of Kansas for term limits, we’re reaching out on a daily basis to these state reps and state senators to help advocate and get this passed and through the finish line.
HR: All right, great. So how do people get involved?
SW: Well, they can easily go to termlimits.com, that’s one way to make your voice heard, sign up for action alerts, sign up for updates from the organization. Also, we just celebrated National Term Limits day last week, you can certainly find out if your state reps, your state senators, as well as your federal delegation support the term limits pledge and has actually signed it. I was very honored to run for congress in Kansas’ third district in 2020, and very proud that in my congressional race, I was the first one to execute the pledge and it’s something that I can’t paint on day in and day out because we certainly need this new generation of leaders.
HR: All right. Well, thank you Sarah, for joining us today, really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule and keep up the good work in Kansas.
SW: Right back at you, Holly, thanks for having me.
HR: Thank you.
[music]HR: This week, we welcome Alek Skarlatos as our new Oregon co-chair. Alek is known to millions as the National Guard Soldier who along with three others, stopped a gunman on a Paris bound train. His heroism earned him several awards and medals around the world, including the United States Soldiers Medal. After serving with the National Guard for five years, Alek left military service in 2017. Upon completion, he voices inspiring experience by authoring 15:17 to Paris, the true story of a terrorist, a train, and three American heroes. He later had the privilege of working with legendary Director Clint Eastwood on the film. We are proud to have Alek as a member of our team, we welcome him on board. Now it’s time for the corrupt politician of the week, this week, Florida’s representative Kathy Castor makes our list. She’s been in Congress since 2007 and doesn’t support term limits.
HR: In 2021, castor was late in disclosing purchase of tens of thousands of dollars of stock. She’s been an outspoken advocate for allowing members of Congress to trade individual stocks. Being elected to Congress shouldn’t be about enriching oneself, it should be about serving the people. Serving in Congress is not supposed to be a lifetime career. That’s why we’re working at US Term limits so hard to pass term limits on Congress, but we can’t do it without your help. Please get involved. Go to termlimits.org and get involved today and make sure to tell your friends to watch Breaking News on Term limits every week. This is Holly Robichaud, and I’ll be back to you next week.