Philip Blumel: Charlie Kirk and Term Limits. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode 271, published on September 21, 2025.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: With the murder of Charlie Kirk, the attention of the nation seems to have turned to him. Who was he? What did he stand for? Why was he so controversial? Well, those questions are well beyond the scope of this podcast. However, you might ask, what was Charlie Kirk’s and his organization’s stand on term limits? Well, we can help you with that one. Term limits was not at the top of Kirk’s agenda. In bringing this up, I’m not trying to oversell this. I’m just basically bringing the subject of this podcast to bear on an important topical event. I don’t think it’s surprising that, like some 87% of Americans, Kirk supported congressional term limits, and so did his organization, Turning Point USA. Kirk made this clear via a series of Twitter and X posts over the years. Here’s one from December 15, 2016. Quote, term limits would have a multi-generational positive impact to drain the swamp and rid D.C. Of the permanent corruption that pollutes it. Yeah. Another post a few years later shouted term limits now in all capital letters. I have a couple more of these, but you get the point. His organization, Turning Point USA, has also tweeted on the issue.
Philip Blumel: For example, in an X post from 2014, the organization stated that term limits would be a beautiful thing. And more recently, in 2023, TPUSA posted, quote, once again, I come to you all with a novel idea, term limits. Kirk also embraced the idea of using an Article V convention for term limits and other amendments. The founding fathers gave us a foolproof way to rein in an overreaching federal government in Article V, he wrote in 2017. A convention of states is the only constitutional way to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and anyone who wants to give power back to the people will support this growing movement. So there you go. And now, from the other side of the aisle, This is a public survey announcement. Andrew Yang is an American businessman, attorney, and author who came to prominence as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. Term limits was a top issue in his campaign, and he’s still pushing the idea. Here’s Yang with a PSA reposted by The Hill.
Speaker 3: Hey, everyone. You know me as the math guy, and some of the numbers that are jumping out at me now are that our members of Congress are getting a little bit up there. The average member of Congress is 58.4, Senator 64.3, leadership is 81 and 70. We need leaders that understand technology, understand the changes that are happening around us more and more. We need term limits, which 75% of us are for. It’s common sense. Let’s get this done and modernize our leadership and government.
Philip Blumel: Like Kirk tweeted on yet another occasion about term limits, a balanced budget, and a ban on lobbying by ex-congressmembers, these are not partisan, they are patriotic. He was right. Next. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina is the chief sponsor of the Congressional Term Limits Constitutional Amendment, HJR 12. Of course, he signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the amendment, but more than that, he has helped get other pledge signers to fulfill their commitment and co-sponsor the bill. Few people in the U.S. House has done more to advance the amendment. Today, HJR 12 has 101 sponsors. So, imagine how my heart sank when I heard that Representative Norman was leaving Congress. But as one door closes, another opens, as they say. Representative Norman is hardly going to leave his term limits activism in the U.S. House. Ralph Norman is now officially a candidate for the governor of Georgia and has signed the U.S. Term Limits Governor’s Pledge. It reads, quote, I pledge that as governor, I will support the U.S. Term Limits Resolution, applying for an Article V convention for the limited purpose of enacting term limits on Congress. Now we’re talking. As you know, U.S. Term Limits is pushing both a congressional term limits constitutional amendment in Congress and an amendment proposing convention called by the states.
Philip Blumel: Twelve states so far have officially called for this convention. And we thought earlier in 2025 that Georgia was going to be the 13th state and the 4th in 2025. And it almost was. The term limits convention application passed the Georgia Senate, and we believed that we had enough votes in the Georgia House. And, you know, we probably did. We just never got a vote. And now the legislative session in Georgia is over for 2025. So we have to start all over in Georgia again next year. But don’t worry, we will. Now it looks like we’re going to have a powerful ally on the campaign trail and maybe in the governor’s mansion in 2026. We’ll see. On the other hand, there are politicians like U.S. Representative Guy Reschenthaler of Western Pennsylvania, who signed the U.S. Term limits pledge to co-sponsor the congressional term limits constitutional amendment as a candidate. And then after a few terms in office, well, he just stopped answering our phone calls. Chris Potter, at 90.5 WESA, the NPR affiliate in Pittsburgh, is covering this story. And in it, posted online on September 5th, he quotes U.S. Tournament’s chief executive officer Scott Tillman. Here are the relevant excerpts.
Philip Blumel: Reschenthaler is serving his fourth term, Potter wrote. U.S. Tournaments doesn’t ask legislators to step down themselves, but Reschenthaler signed a pledge to back the amendment. And in each of his first three terms, he co-sponsored such a bill weeks after the session began. But not this year. As of Thursday afternoon, Reschenthaler isn’t on the list of the bill’s nearly 100 co-sponsors, which include five of Reschenthaler’s Republican Pennsylvania colleagues. Sometimes it’s an oversight, said Tillman, but we’ve been trying to reach out to him several times and we haven’t gotten a good response. I know the feeling. When I asked Reschenthaler’s office on Wednesday why he wasn’t a co-sponsor and whether he planned to be, his office shared this statement with WESA. Since coming to Congress, Representative Guy Reschenthaler has supported legislation limiting terms for federal lawmakers. As a member of the House Republican leadership, he is laser-focused on enacting President Trump’s America First agenda and delivering results for hardworking Pennsylvanians. That told me something I already knew, that Reschenthaler had supported tournaments in the past without addressing what I wanted to know, whether he’d do so now. When I asked him on Wednesday for clarification, I did not get a response.
Philip Blumel: Even if he does, the delay stings because Reschenthaler has found time to back other legislation. He is, for example, one of four co-sponsors for H.R. 691, which designates Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia as the Donald J. Trump International Airport. And there are limits on the movement’s patience as well. U.S. Tournaments is posting a billboard along Interstate 70 in Washington County, which runs through Reschenthaler’s 14th District, with a photo of Reschenthaler that accuses him of breaking his U.S. Tournaments pledge. Nine out of ten of your constituents support this, Tillman added. You made a promise to your voters. What’s the holdup? Next, we return to President Trump’s suggestion that he just might run for a third term as president. We think he was joking, or trolling, to be more precise, but the question arose again on Fox News last week as Bret Baier interviewed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Let’s listen.
Speaker 4: President Trump run for a third term. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was asked recently about the constitutional amendment preventing such a scenario.
Speaker 5: And the 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms.
Amy Coney Barrett: True.
Speaker 5: You think that that’s cut and dry?
Amy Coney Barrett: Well, that’s, you know, that’s what the amendment says, right? You know, after FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.
Speaker 6: Her answer came in terms of what she says is the concrete nature of some of the amendments in the U.S. Constitution. Barrett argues others are much more vague. This has some Republicans flirt with the idea of Trump running again.
Philip Blumel: Next, the Muscogee Creek Nation might pass a constitutional amendment on term limits. I hope the U.S. Congress is paying attention. The idea unanimously passed the relevant committee and is now headed to the full National Council for a vote. If adopted, this amendment of Article 6, Section 2 of the Constitution of the Muscogee Creek Nation will limit National Council representatives of the Muscogee Creek Nation to a total of three terms, whether consecutive or non-consecutive. The law would go into effect beginning in January 2026. Meanwhile, in the country of Chad, things are moving the other way. On its website, Radio France International ran the headline, Chad’s move to drop presidential term limits slammed as a burial of democracy. RFI reports that Chad is a step closer to allowing the president to serve an unlimited number of terms after the lower house of parliament signed off on major constitutional changes this week. Opposition figures told RFI that the move, which could help keep President Mahamat Deby in power, presents a fundamental threat to democracy. Chad’s revised constitution was overwhelmingly approved by the National Assembly on Monday and is due for a final vote by the Senate on the 13th of October.
Philip Blumel: If it passes there too, then the president will sign the new constitution into law. Among other changes, the reform extends the president’s term from five to seven years, renewable without limit. The reform favors President Deby, who seized power in Chad in 2021 after his father, long-serving President Idriss Deby Intno, was killed as he was visiting troops fighting militias in the north of the country. He claimed victory following a disputed election held after three years of military rule in May 2024. Parliamentary elections followed in December, granting the vast majority of seats to the ruling party. This is sad to hear, as the abolishing of term limits has been the kiss of death of fragile democracies in Africa over the last generation or so. Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen backsliding on term limits in Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Guinea, Rwanda, Uganda, and others. Interestingly, the wave of term limits implementation in Africa occurred at the same time that the term limits movement had hit its peak in the United States between 1990 and 1994. Remember that 1990 through 1994, 23 states enacted term limits on their legislatures or their congressional delegations, or both.
Philip Blumel: In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton in 1995 voided all the congressional term limits that the states had passed. And throughout Africa, as the term limits hit, would-be dictators pushed back and the weak institutions in these countries just didn’t hold. President Obama was an advocate of term limits on both the Congress and the presidency in the United States, and he urged African leaders to respect their term limits and leave office peacefully. Let’s finish this episode with the former President of the United States speaking to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2015.
Barack Obama: I have to also say that Africa’s democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end now, let me be honest with you, I do not understand this. I am in my second term. It has been an extraordinary privilege for me to serve as the President of the United States. I cannot imagine a greater honor or a more interesting job. I love my work. But under our Constitution, I cannot run again. I can’t run again. I actually think I’m a pretty good president. I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t. So there’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving, but the law is the law. And no one person is above the law, not even the President. And I’ll be honest with you, I’m looking forward to life after being President. I won’t have such a big security detail all the time. It means I can go take a walk. I can spend time with my family. I can find other ways to serve. I can visit Africa more often.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify.
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 slash take action. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committive 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
Philip Blumel: To send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you’re watching. That’s termlimits.com slash take action. 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 U.S. Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the U.S. Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com slash donate. Termlimits.com slash donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at U.S. Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn. USTL.