Late 2015 in New Hampshire — right
in the thick of the presidential primary — a popular ex-governor swaggered up
to my U.S. Term Limits table. I had been handing out foam pitchforks and
yelling “drain the swamp” to passersby that day.
“What’s this all about, young fellow?”
he bellowed in a deep Southern drawl. “Term limits, sir,” I responded. “You
support term limits, don’t you?” “Hell no!” he said. “We have term limits
already, and dad-gummit, they’re called elections!!”
I thought carefully before I
replied. On one hand, here was a typical politician, opposing term limits
because — as Scott Murphy puts it — a politician’s job is to get re-elected. On
the other, here was a typical politician, he needs votes and no issue polls
better with the public than ours.
“Well sir, did you know term limits
have 82 percent support from the public?” I asked. He paused, scratched his
head, slowly leaned in real close, and said: “I’m listening.” That weekend he
signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge.
I had been working on term limits
campaigns for years before this interaction, yet never before had the power of
the issue been illustrated so perfectly. This exchange convinced me that the
same opportunism keeping lawmakers in power could be redirected to pass term
limits. What if, instead of protecting their careers by opposing term limits,
the political class was motivated to save their own bacon by voting for it?
What if we could get them to do the right thing for the wrong reason? This is
the strategy laid out by Scott Murphy in “The Term Limit Revolution.”
At no time in the history of the
modern term limits movement, which just reached its 30th birthday, has anyone
laid out a plan as powerful and convincing as this one. The “Revolution” starts
off with a bang, as Murphy indicts Congress for pulling the wool over the eyes
of the voting public. He explains how careerist legislators have rigged the rules
of their own game, and how elections and professional wrestling might be more
alike than different. (One’s a rigged competition where people dress up and
pretend to be enemies. The other is wrestling.)
After presenting a solid case for
fumigating the place, Murphy answers a question every American ponders from the
moment they reach the age of reason: how do members of Congress survive scandal
after scandal with zero accountability?
By the middle of the book, you will
be angry, you will be motivated, and you will be ready to enlist in the
Revolution. That’s when Murphy lays out the blueprint and shows how to make
congressional term limits happen.
It’s been clear for a long time that
citizens of all parties love term limits and distrust Congress. Polling shows
Congress with lower approval ratings than hemorrhoids, traffic jams, and root
canals. Politicians are narrowly more popular than head lice, but the lice are
demanding a recount. Despite these support levels, a term limits amendment has
remained elusive.
Murphy assures us: the question is
not if we will get term limits, but when. He reminds readers that we cannot let
perfect be the enemy of good. Securing a term limits amendment to the
Constitution will require discipline. It will require working across party
lines. It will require some compromise to reclaim a citizen legislature for all
of posterity.
This is where “The Term Limits
Revolution” makes its biggest contribution. This is a playbook challenging
Republicans and Democrats to do the unthinkable: work together for a common
cause. The Revolution unites conservative Iowa farmers and progressive
Hollywood actors. It finds common ground between Donald Trump and Barack Obama,
who both support term limits.
It has been a pleasure for everyone
on the U.S. Term Limits team to work with the author in coordinating our
strategies. For 30 years, politicians have exploited disunity in the term
limits movement as an excuse to take no action at all. They have pitted group
against group and faction against faction. The shrewd instincts of Scott Murphy
have helped ensure this will never happen again.
A day will come when the collective
efforts of many great Americans will result in term limits for Congress and the
restoration of a citizen legislature. On that day, we will look back and try to
figure out how we got it done. I am confident the efforts of Scott Murphy in
writing this book will be viewed as an essential step on our path to victory.
Nicolas
Tomboulides
Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits
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