Category: term limits

Terms for Taxes

Years ago, I dubbed Tim Eyman “America’s #1 freedom fighter,” and how does he repay me? Washington State’s anti-tax crusading initiative guru has gone and stolen my bread-and-butter issue, term limits … and married it up with another one of his tax initiatives.

He’s calling Initiative 1648: Term Limits on Taxes.

“This measure would require state tax increases to expire after one year unless approved by a majority vote of the people,” informs the official ballot title, “and immediately terminate any tax increases imposed in 2019 without such approval.”

Did someone say “tax increases”?

“They went absolutely bonkers this legislative session,” Eyman told radio host Lars Larson recently. “There were 11 tax increases; they totaled over $27 billion over the next ten years. And there’s just no checks and balances.”

Speaking with Dori Monson of KIRO Radio, he noted that “all of them were passed without a vote of the people. This initiative says whenever they raise taxes without a vote of the people, we’re going to put it on a strict time limit.”

But with a July 5th deadline, supporters have less than two weeks left to gather the 320,000 voter signatures required on the petition.

It is terrible that Evergreen State voters can’t term-limit their state legislators directly. But in 1998, the state supreme court struck down a term limits initiative passed by voters, ruling that a constitutional amendment was required — something only legislators can propose.

Now, thanks to Mr. Eyman, at least voters can slap term limits on their legislators’ tax increases.

Still, he stole the idea from me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Dousing the Dumpster Fire

“Congress is less popular than traffic jams, root canals, and hemorrhoids,” U.S. Term Limits Executive Director Nick Tomboulides explained yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing.

“You’re beating head lice,” he added, “but the lice have asked for a recount.”

Mr. Tomboulides and U.S. Term Limits support Senate Joint Resolution 1, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), which calls for a three-term, six-year House limit and a two-term, 12-year Senate limit.

“Governing is incredibly hard,” argued R Street Institute Senior Fellow and term limits opponent Casey Burgat earlier on C‑Span’s Washington Journal. “There is no school for this.”

The real world, perchance?

“Right now, we have the most experienced, professionalized, careerist Congress in American history,” Tomboulides countered, “and the results are a dumpster fire.”

“When I came to Congress, I supported term limits in theory,” former U.S. Representative and Senator Jim DeMint (R‑South Carolina) testified. “Now I support it after seeing what really happens here.”

“Over 80 percent of Americans want term limits to happen,” Tomboulides offered. “Donald Trump and Barack Obama want it.”

“The only impediment,” as Sen. Cruz pointed out, “is the United States Congress.”

That’s why U.S. Term Limits is working to convince 34 state legislatures to bypass Congress by passing bills for a convention under Article V of the Constitution, which can consider and propose an amendment for congressional term limits.

It’s the people’s path to putting out the dumpster fire.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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House-Cleaning & Law-Following

Post author By Redactor
Post date June 10, 2019
No Comments on House-Cleaning & Law-Following

Larry Hogan, Maryland’s popular Republican governor, has vowed to “clean house” in the wake of the scandals rocking the “private” non-profit University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), set up by the State of Maryland.

It isn’t just former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned from the UMMS board after it was disclosed the board had purchased $500,000 worth of her self-published children’s book, “Healthy Holly.” Yep, it’s always for the children. (Pugh also resigned as mayor after the FBI raided her home and office.)

In fact, nine of the 23 UMMS board members had money-making contracts with the system they “manage.” Not to mention that a recent Post exposé detailed how former state legislator and long-time board member, Francis Kelly, whose legislation established the system, had multi-million-dollar insurance contracts with UMMS.

Yet, as The Washington Post reports, “state law long has called for housecleaning … specifying that board members can’t serve more than two consecutive five-year terms.”

Gov. Hogan and his predecessors — both Republican and Democrat — simply ignored the law, reappointing board members beyond the limits.

“If members were allowed to essentially stay on the board in perpetuity,” former state senator, now U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D‑Md.) argued, “it’s a direct threat to the independence and accountability of the board.”

Abandoning term limits, State Senator Jill Carter (D‑Baltimore City) told the Post, was “part of the problem,” resulting in self-dealing.

Hmmm, think they’ll ever apply this knowledge to establishing term limits on their own powerful legislative bodies?

So much corruption, too few limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tiananmen & Term Limits

Paul discusses how meaningful 1989’s Tiananmen protests were for him and for America, historically.

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Beto’s Best Reform

“All too often politicians focus on their own re-election,” says Robert Francis ‘Beto’ O’Rourke, “at the expense of addressing the challenges our country faces.”

A supporter of term limits during his six years in Congress, in 2018 Beto left a safe House seat to challenge U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, also a term limits backer. In a very Republican state, Mr. O’Rourke fell just a smidgeon short of an upset, catching a ton of national attention — leading to his current candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

His “Plan to Realize the Full Potential of Our Democracy” calls for 12-year congressional limits and 18-year limits on U.S. Supreme Court justices. Admittedly, both require amending the Constitution, but a president using his bully pulpit sure can help the effort.*

“The issue of term limits in Congress has some bipartisan support,” notes a BuzzFeed News story, “but … it starkly divides Democrats.”

The reporter is not talking about voters — a poll last year found a whopping 77 percent of Democrats favor “Establishing limits on the number of terms members of the U.S. Congress can serve.”

But as the BuzzFeed article explains, “Former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and [Sen. Bernie] Sanders all oppose instituting them for members of Congress.”

Not surprising. Both Sanders and Warren are incumbents — with Sanders in Congress for the last 28 years and Warren in her second Senate term, while Biden spent 36 years in the Senate and eight more as Vice President.

“Limit permanent incumbency,” Beto’s website states, “to promote progress, reduce gridlock and inspire more to run for office.”

While Democrat politicians may not be pleased, O’Rourke’s term-limit push will register with voters of all parties.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob

* President Donald Trump endorsed term limits in the homestretch of the 2016 campaign. He would be wise to trumpet the issue again and again in order to keep pressure on Congress.

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What Tiananmen Inspired

Tiananmen Square, China, Goddess of Democracy, term limits, freedom,

Why did term limits spring up in the 1990s?

Term limitation has a long history in America, of course — and all the way back to Aristotle — but why the resurgence? I remember opponents suggesting that Americans were frustrated with slow economic growth.

Not likely.

In “Restoring Faith in Congress,” a 1993 article in the Yale Law & Policy Review, authors Kimberly Coursen, Thomas Mann, Norman Ornstein and Todd Quinn recognized that “the 1990s are different” because “the climate for far-reaching political reform is ripe.”

But why?

For seven weeks in 1989, Chinese students protested for freedom and greater democracy, joined by others until more than a million people filled Tiananmen Square. Americans were deeply moved by their makeshift Goddess of Democracy, resembling our Statute of Liberty, as well as by the students’ demands, which read much like our Declaration of Independence.

Then, all that hope was doused, courtesy the Butchers of Beijing.

Five months later, the Berlin Wall came down, followed by the overthrow of communism throughout Europe, then the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

No more Cold War.

Americans, lacking an external enemy for the first time in decades, and with Tiananmen’s “tankman” fresh in our minds, could at last safely take a good look at our own government.

We did not like what we saw.

In 1990, Americans in three states — California, Colorado and Oklahoma — used direct democracy by petitioning term-limit initiatives onto the ballot. All three won. In 1992, U.S. Term Limits rallied voters to pass initiatives in a record 14 states.

Sadly, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests did not usher in freedom for China. Yet, they lit fires in hearts across the globe.

Including mine.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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