2024 was US Term Limit’s most successful year. Now, will 2025 top 2024? Hi, I’m Holly Robichaud, and this is US Term Limits Breaking News. Looking back at 2024, we had three states pass the US Term Limits resolution: Tennessee, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Also, Florida passed the resolution again to clear up the language. We saw a record number of congressional candidates who signed our US Term Limits pledge elected to Congress. And in the state legislatures, 1,273 pledge signers were elected to office in 2024, compared to 932 in 2022. As you can see, this is our largest number of pledge signers serving in office ever. 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 Moreno. He was elected to the 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, Alex Gallerados, was elected to the House of Representatives in Oregon. We congratulate them all, and we’re excited about their help in advancing term limits.
With Micah Beckwith preparing to take on his new role as Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor, he passed the chairmanship torch on to Representative Mike Speedy. Check out our recent press conference announcing Mike Speedy as our new Indiana State Chair.
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 a 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. So, I just, without further ado, I would love to introduce Mike and let him share a few words on some of the endeavors and some of the things that we’re looking to accomplish here in Indiana. When it comes to US Term Limits. So, Mike, thanks for everything you’re doing and looking forward to having you.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Yep.
Thank you, Micah. It’s an honor to carry on, carry this ball for US Term Limits in the state of Indiana. We want to advance the cause of freedom. We think that having US Term Limits is important to getting our country back on track. We have the swamp, we have Washington because of career politicians not listening to their constituency because once they get there, they stay there and they enjoy the culture of governance and bloated government. Having these term limits would create a sense of urgency for them to affect change to get us back to where the Constitution intended our federal government to be. It will reconnect them closer to the voter, and it’s what we need for this country to get back to where it needs to be, and to make, frankly, to make America great again. I mean that in every sense of the word. So, I’m honored to have this role in our state legislature and to be that voice for this important initiative in the state of Indiana. And I will do it to my utmost. Happy to be accessible to help people understand the importance of putting pressure on creating a narrow convention or pressure to have a narrow convention to affect these amendments that would limit members of Congress and in what they do so we can get our country back to where it needs to be.
Thank you very much. This is an honor, and happy to answer any questions and happy to make myself accessible after this announcement. Thank you.
Thanks Mike. And then one other thing I’d like to say too, if I could. This session is going to be important. We are… In Indiana, 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. So thank you all, and thanks for coming and appreciate you. So we’ll see you out there.
Mike Speedy is a former state representative and was just recently appointed by incoming Indiana Governor Mike Braun as Secretary of Business and Administration. Micah Beckwith, as Lieutenant Governor, will be supporting term limits and will be the President of the State Senate in his new capacity. Incoming Governor Mike Braun is also a strong supporter of term limits. While serving his single term in the United States Senate, he was a cosponsor of Senator Ted Cruz’s Senate Joint Resolution to the US Term Limits Amendment. Last year, the Indiana House passed the US Term Limits Amendment, but the State Senate failed to do so. This year, we have strong momentum in Indiana to pass our resolution in the House and in the State Senate. Let’s go, Indiana. Let’s get it done this year.
While 2024 has just passed a couple of days ago, we’re already making progress in 2025. In Arkansas, State Representative Jack Ladyman has agreed to be the sponsor of House Joint Resolution 1004. This resolution would have Arkansas join other states in calling for a convention for proposing a Congressional Term Limits Amendment to the United States Constitution. We’ve also pre-filed in South Carolina, Kansas, Georgia, and New Hampshire. One of the biggest stories breaking at the end of 2024 has been the news of 81-year-old United States Representative Kay Granger of Texas.
Representative Granger has not voted in the Congress since July in 2024. In April last year, she had to step down as the Chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Supposedly, no one knew where Granger was. However, Politico revealed that she was living in Traditions Senior Home Living in Fort Worth, Texas. According to her son, she is suffering from some dementia issues. First elected in 1996, Representative Granger did not seek reelection last year. She is one of 17 members of last year’s congress aged 80 or older. In other aged old news, there’s Pennsylvania Representative Dwight Evans who has not voted since suffering a stroke in May last year. At first, he claimed that he would return to work in six weeks. Then he said he would come back in November. Now, he claims his medical team says he may be able to return this month. He was reelected in November, facing no opposition. That’s right, he had no opposition even though he hasn’t been able to vote in months, those people have not been represented. Representative Evans was first elected to the House in 2016. Prior to that, he served in the Pennsylvania House from 1981 to 2016.
See why we need term limits? Over the past several years, we saw former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, age 84, and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, age 82, suffer falls. The two members have served a total of 76 years in Congress combined, and guess what? They oppose term limits. With Congress becoming increasingly older and questions about mental capacity of various members having arisen, we would be remiss to not mention that North Dakota voters overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment that prohibits anyone age 81 or older from serving in Congress from that state. Now, an update on our story about the trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Until Madigan’s downfall, he was the nation’s longest-serving House speaker and was pointed up as an example of why term limits was a bad idea. He was considered the most powerful politician in Illinois. Madigan is on trial for racketeering conspiracy outlined in a 117-page indictment, alleging five separate schemes. At its core, the indictment accuses Madigan of leading the criminal Madigan enterprise designed to enhance his political power and reward his allies and associates. The prosecution has rested their case after calling 50 witnesses. Defense began calling witnesses to present their case.
The first witness they called for was Madigan’s legal counsel, and he’s now a sitting judge. The witness, Judge David Elvis, praised Madigan in his testimony, claiming that Madigan operated above board and helped consumers. The trial has now adjourned for the holidays. Now it’s time for our corrupt politician segment, and it is former California US Representative Jerry Lewis, also known as the master of Congressional earmarks. He was elected in 1978 and served 17 terms, 34 years in Congress. The New York Times states that Mr. Lewis was best known for sending enormous sums of money back to his Southern California district through the use of earmarks. He sent tens of millions of dollars to educational, medical, and research institutions, military installations, a dam on the Santa Ana River, extensive tree clearing, and San Bernardino National Forest, and other projects. The New York Times also reports that he had improperly steered millions of dollars in earmarks to clients of four of a lobbyist, Bill Lowery, a former Republican Congressman of California. It’s no one’s surprise to learn that some of these clients have extensively donated to Mr. Lewis’s reelection campaign. Well, no surprise at all. Well, it’s 2025, a new year, and I have renewed hope that term limits can become a reality. We’ve got the momentum, we’ve got the support.
We’ve never had so many pledge signers serving in Congress, but we can’t do it without you. We need you to go to termlimits.org and get involved today, and be sure to share this program with your friends and family. This is Holly Robichaud for US Term Limits Breaking News. I’ll see you soon.