Many politicians promise to limit the time they’ll spend in office. Some follow through on those promises. Others decide they like the perks and privileges of elected office too much to give them up. The Alliance for Bonded Term Limits is designed to help politicians stick to their word. Founder and chairman John Skvarla discussed the alliance with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: Before we chat about what the Alliance for Bonded Term Limits is doing, first let’s talk about term limits. Why is this something that’s so important?
Skvarla: Well, Mitch, I have been a devotee of term limits for many, many years because if you narrow down the process to its core essence and you think and hear about all the irrational outcomes that emanate from our U.S. Congress, it all ties back to one simple thing: getting re-elected. And I am a believer that many of the solutions to our problems today are basic common sense. Common sense gets perverted when you have to accommodate dozens and dozens and dozens of different factions, because you don’t want to alienate anyone because you need to be re-elected. In essence, buying votes. And if you eliminate the need to buy votes and you eliminate the need to placate dozens and dozens of factions, you can step back, take a deep breath, and say, “What makes sense?” Whether it’s the environment or health care, taxation — any issue you name — you can step back and I’ll bet you can come up with common-sense solutions that 80 percent of the American public would be in favor of.
But the problem is it’s all perverted because you need to be re-elected. And if you look at the great scholars of our time, at least in my opinion — the Milton Friedmans and people like that — they have all boiled it down to that same essence. Everything gets distorted because, as Lyndon Johnson said to an incoming class of congressmen, “Your only job is to get re-elected.” Well, that shouldn’t be their only job. I saw John McCain … make a statement about [President] Obama in Afghanistan. And he said, “Obama’s got two problems: He’s got a political problem, and he’s got a military problem.” And I wanted to throw something at the television set. I said, “He doesn’t have a political problem. He’s got a military problem. He’s got a problem that’s about America and the safety of America and the safety of our troops.” Politics shouldn’t even enter into something like that. But it’s because the political problem is all these people need to get re-elected.
Kokai: Now, if you are a devotee of term limits, there are a couple of ways to go about it. One is to have term limits set in the law so that people cannot run beyond a certain number of terms. The Alliance for Bonded Term Limits is approaching this from a different aspect. Tell us what the alliance is working on.
Skvarla: Well, I tell you, I wish we had a political class that actually could say, “We will set in the law a limitation on our own tenure in power.” It’s never going to happen. There are two groups out there. … U.S. Term Limits has been around about 20 years, and they are very involved in state term limit issues — and then I think there’s an organization called Citizens for Term Limits that has been pushing for a constitutional amendment. It’s not going to happen. I’d be better pushing on a rope than I would expecting that we’re going to have a constitutional amendment by the very people whose tenure it would limit in office. It’s not going to happen.
So what is the Alliance for Bonded Term Limits? It grew out of a genuine eureka moment. And I need to retreat a little bit, back to 1994 with the Contract with America. Irrespective of your belief in the planks in the Contract with America, there was one plank in there that gave it soul, and that was term limits. And 74 freshmen congressmen were elected signing an individual pledge that said, “I will stay here for six years,” giving the Contract with America what I call “soul,” and said, “This contract is about America and not about me being re-elected. The good of America is ahead of me.” And I was jubilant. I thought we had finally hit on something in this country that said, for once, the beginning of a political class that would put America and common sense ahead of themselves.
Well, after the Republicans swept into power in ’94, and, again, irrespective of their platform, it took about three weeks for them to throw term limits under the bus. And I found out recently how they did it, but the reality is, 68 of the 74 incoming congressmen that took that pledge, broke it. And they broke it within about the first three weeks of them having been put in office. So I was, you know, I said, “Well, you know, history has been strewn with bodies of people breaking campaign promises.” And the irony — this is the one promise a politician can keep. If I’m in favor of tax reform, I’m dependent on 534 other legislators going along with that. Term limits is something that is me. I can keep that one pledge because it affects no one but me and my constituency. My word is my bond. Once upon a time in this country, that used to be part of what we were about.
Kokai: And speaking of bond, let’s get to what the alliance is doing.
Skvarla: So about three years ago I had a eureka moment. We had just had to purchase for our company a performance bond for a construction project. And I must have been driving along and ranting to myself about politicians, and I said, “Wait a minute. Here is the way you can bridge the gap between a promise that a politician can keep, solely affected by themselves, and a mechanism to have them put some skin in the game. To say, if I break my word — my word is my bond supposedly — but now if I just happen to get imbibed with the grandiosity of Washington, D.C., and drink the Kool-Aid of power, it’s going to cost me money out of my pocket.”
And it took me about three years to get the time and, I guess, the ire. I guess I had to reach a boiling point where I said, “I’m tired of flapping at cocktail parties about this stuff. I’m going to do something about it.” So the Alliance for Bonded Term Limits was born. … And people have asked me: How long the term and how much money? My answer is that it’s not about your platform and it’s not about your term. You have to look the voters in the eye and tell them what is putting them first versus putting yourself first. You know, I’ve had some people come to me and say, “How about a 10-year term?” And I said, “I can’t tell you what to do, but I think that’s chicanery.” Ten years is a career. You know, how much for the bond? It should be a function of your net worth to make it painful if you break your pledge. You know, it’s different if you’re worth $10 million versus you’re worth $200,000. Just make it meaningful. I’m looking for candidates who so believe in their agenda for the good of America that they’re willing to put America ahead of themselves. … God forbid we can find people that say it’s about our country, not about me.