Philip Blumel: Term limits amendment bills introduced in the US Congress. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode number 255, published on January 13th, 2025.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: Last year, the Term Limits Movement had its most successful year since we launched the Term Limits Convention project back in 2016. Four state legislatures in 2024 approved the application for an amendment writing convention under Article 5 of the US Constitution, limited to the subject of congressional term limits. These were North Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and for a second time to clean up some language in the application, Florida. For the full recap of 2025, and there’s a lot more, I want you to refer to last episode 254 at termlimits.com/podcast. I don’t want to recap here because I’m done looking back. 2025 is setting up to be even bigger.
Philip Blumel: Things are already falling into place. Since the first of the year, the US Term Limits Amendment has been introduced to both the US House and the US Senate. In the US House, Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina introduced House Joint Resolution 12. The proposal for a constitutional amendment once approved by the US Congress and ratified by the states would limit US representatives to three terms or six years and US senators to two terms or 12 years. There are only 29 representatives listed on the resolution right now, but don’t fret. The number of sponsors is expected to more than triple as US Term Limits has secured written pledges from more than 150 members of the 119th Congress that these politicians will jump on the bill as sponsors. And over in the US Senate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced the same bill as Senate Joint Resolution 1. Yep, number one. There are 12 senators already on this bill, but again, there’s more to come.
Philip Blumel: 23 senators in all have signed the US Term Limits pledge to do so. This pledge is not a self-limit. It’s a pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the US Term Limits constitutional amendment. And the goal of that is to implement term limits on the entire institution and not just on individual members of Congress. All right? And this is the constitutional amendment we’re talking about. Not to be confused with the Term Limits Convention Project, which seeks to pressure Congress by pursuing a constitutional amendment via the states. OK, thank you very much, Senator Cruz and Representative Norman. As we say around the virtual office, the table is set for the new year.
S?: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: The National Desk is the national news program that utilizes content from the network of Sinclair broadcasting stations around the country. Last week, the National Desk noted the introduction of the US Term Limits amendment bills in the new House and the new Senate and reached out to Scott Tillman of US Term Limits for comment.
Kayla Gaskins: I’m Kayla Gaskins. The days of senators spending decades in office could be numbered thanks to an effort going through Washington right now.
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi returned to Washington with a walker following her hip surgery. The image is going viral on social media, highlighting not only her age, but the decades she spent in power on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 5: If this isn’t an iconic photo that sums up the majority of our Congress, I don’t know what is.
Speaker 4: This as talk of term limits are gaining steam, resolutions making their way through the House and the Senate to cap the number of years one can spend in Congress.
Speaker 6: We have it on the president. We have it on most of the governors in the states. A lot of state legislatures have it. It’s time for it on Congress. The public knows it’s just the one thing that they can’t get over is they’re unwilling to give up that power and that self-interest.
Speaker 4: News broke last month that now former Representative Kay Granger from Texas didn’t cast a vote for six months in office because the 81-year-old was in a memory care facility. Mitch McConnell has made headlines for his concerning freezes during speeches. Senator Dianne Feinstein died in office at 90 between votes on the Hill.
Speaker 7: The Senate is like an assisted living facility.
Speaker 4: The new Congress is the third-oldest on record, and the new Senate is the oldest to ever serve. Senator Chuck Grassley now the oldest at 91. Congressman Hal Rogers not far behind at 87. Congresswoman Maxine Waters is the third-oldest member at 86. Senator Ted Cruz leading the Senate effort, his proposal limits representatives to three terms. So six years of service and senators to two terms amounting to 12 years in office. Scott Tillman, the chief operations officer for the group US Term Limits, points out age and ability is far from the only concern.
Scott Tillman: The longer Congress people stay in office, the less they represent their constituents and the more they start to represent special interests and other people in Congress.
Kayla Gaskins: The latest Pew Research poll shows broad bipartisan support for congressional term limits. 87% of voters say they approve of a constitutional amendment to implement the changes. I’m Kayla Gaskins reporting.
Philip Blumel: Well, a new listener might ask, “If things are going so swimmingly in the US Congress, why should we bother with the state-level project of trying to call a constitutional amendment writing convention and Article 5 limited to congressional term limits?” Well, you know the reason. Yeah, we have the bills introduced in both houses. We have about 27% of the US Congress pledged to co-sponsor the bills. And we have about 87% of the people of all parties and no parties on our side throughout the country. But that’s not enough. For a constitutional amendment to be proposed by Congress, it takes two-thirds of Congress and the amendment the Congress would be voting on would limit the politicians own terms. Asking them nicely, even very nicely, isn’t going to do the trick. That’s why we need the term limits convention project, not as a backup, but as pressure on Congress.
Philip Blumel: Let me ask you a question. Back in the day, and by that I mean 1913, why did the US Senate propose the 17th amendment that required the direct election of senators, even though the amendment would threaten the job security of every sitting senator? The senators at that time had, you probably recall, been appointed by the state legislatures. Direct election pretty much assured that many or most senators would lose their seats. Well, the reason why the Senate acted is the states pressured them into doing it. As some 24 states officially called for an amendment proposing convention limited to the subject of direct election of senators. Call it the direct election convention. That’s right. So when the senators saw the writing on the wall, they relented.
Philip Blumel: In fact, they took the lead. The incentives and hence the politics shifted under their feet. This is the power of the term limits convention. This is not pie in the sky. This is real politic endorsed by history. Just like the term limits convention, the direct election convention was supported by the voters of both major parties. When the shift came, it came quick.
Philip Blumel: Next, in our episode on the November 5th election results, I missed a couple of important races for the term limits movement. Fortunately though, we have Holly Robichaud and her breaking news on term limits YouTube program to cover my oversight. Holly.
Holly Robichaud: We also saw great success in our state chairs program. Several of our state chairs sought political office in 2024 to advance term limits. In Ohio, our state chair is Bernie Marino. He was elected to United States Senate. In Utah, our state chair, Tina Cannon, was elected state auditor. And in Indiana, our state chair, Micah Beckwith, was elected lieutenant governor. Our former state chair in South Dakota, Taffy Howard, was elected to the state Senate. And in Oregon, our state co-chair, Alek Skarlatos, was elected to the House of Representatives in Oregon. We congratulate them all, and we’re excited about their help in advancing term limits.
Philip Blumel: Thanks, Holly. This is one of the many reasons we expect last year’s momentum to increase into 2025. We have other good reasons to think so. For one, we are getting the state level term limits convention bills introduced in more states than ever. You know, this project isn’t brand new anymore. We started in 2016, winning Florida the first time that year. We have nine states on board and have laid groundwork in a dozen others. We’ve learned the ropes. Let me give you an example of how things come together over time as the project progresses. Look at the state of Indiana. In 2024, the Statehouse in Indiana approved the term limits convention, but the resolution then lost in the Indiana Senate. So, no good. But we were so close. Then we had an election on November 5th in a state where our US term limits pledge crews had focused on collecting written pledges of support from candidates for the term limits convention. Lots of them won.
Philip Blumel: I apologize, I don’t have the exact number right in front of me. Trust me on that one. Also, former US Senator Mike Braun was elected the new governor of Indiana. Now, remember, while he was in Congress, he was a US term limits pledge-signer and a reliable sponsor of the US term limits constitutional amendment. Governor-elect Brown even mentioned term limits in his acceptance speech. Also, Indiana State Rep Dave Hall, who is the chief sponsor of the term limits convention resolution in the state House, won re-election in one of the most tightly contested elections in the state. Also, as Holly mentioned, US term limits state chair Micah Beckwith was elected lieutenant governor of Indiana. To gear up for the new session, former Indiana legislator Mike Speedy was tapped as Indiana state chair for US term limits to succeed Beckwith. Mike Speedy is a second generation real estate investor with degrees in finance and law.
Philip Blumel: He’s been around the block. Here, from a US term limits press conference attended by both Beckwith and Speedy, is the new lieutenant governor handing off the baton to Mike.
Micah Beckwith: All right. Thank you all for coming today on behalf of US term limits. It’s an honor to be here defending what we believe is something that will provide better governance in our nation and that’s term limits for members of Congress. And so, my name is Micah Beckwith, the lieutenant governor elect in the state of Indiana. And I am also the outgoing chairman for US term limits in Indiana as well. And it’s been an honor to be able to serve in that capacity. But it’s really even a bigger honor to pass the torch now to a friend of mine and a colleague and somebody that has done great things for our state, Former Representative Mike Speedy, who is now part of our gubernatorial cabinet under the leadership of Governor-elect Mike Braun. And Mike will be taking over as the chairman for US term limits in Indiana to once again push something that we believe will provide for better governance in the future and days ahead. One other thing I’d like to say to you if I could. This session is going to be important. We are in Indiana.
Micah Beckwith: We are trying to get the US term limits resolution passed in both the House and the Senate. So if you would, you know, work with Mike and help spur on your state reps and state senators to sign on to endorsing the resolution that will be coming through the Indiana General Assembly in 2025. We hope to be one of the states that this session will get it done.
Philip Blumel: Indiana, here we come. And this is only one example. Next, we report on the podcast about what happens when politicians sign a US term limits pledge and then renege on it. Sometimes we’ll run radio or even TV ads about their dishonesty. But one cheaper and surprisingly effective penalty is running billboards in the district, particularly near their offices. Man, they hate that. US term limits is willing to play hardball like that. But I want you to know also, under some circumstances, we will run billboards to thank and congratulate politicians and, of course, to educate the voters that they had signed the pledge.
Philip Blumel: Post-election, we ran such billboards for Representative Eric Sorensen in Illinois, Representative Josh Riley in New York, Greg Lansman in Ohio and Eugene Vindman in Virginia, congratulating them on their election victories and thanking them for signing the US term limits congressional pledges. Now, with the Representative Norman Bill HDR-12 introduced in the US House and Senator Cruz’s Bill SR-1 in the Senate, these politicians can fulfill their promises. We hope the billboards will provide a friendly reminder. Thank you listeners and contributors for the support that makes the progress we’ve made over the past year possible and what’s going to make 2025 our best year ever.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You could help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify, it’s free.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The term limits convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the term limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a take action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators, urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you’re watching.
Philip Blumel: That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution, or the bill has not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US term limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the US Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at US term limits, like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now, LinkedIn.