Upwards of 80% of Americans favor term limits, yet entrenched politicians in Congress – and the lobbyists who need them to advance their special interests – have found ways of quashing them time after time. As the years roll by, cynics might say that the Republic has survived. Sure, the United States of America continues on, but honest observers must concede that with the absence of a true citizen legislature, the standing of its citizens – that’s you – is eroding.
The American people have become like puppeteers whose increasingly lifeless puppet has been detached, little by little, from the strings connecting it to our control.
America’s great middle class – once the envy of the world – has steadily shrunk over the past 50 years. The special interests who fund incumbents are looking out for everybody but us. And so we get higher taxes, lower incomes, and bigger government. The same dynamic has also played out in the political sphere, with a larger and more bureaucratic government weakening personal liberty.
The terrorist threat and crime wave that have breached our collapsed Southern border are more indications of the erosion of the American way of life. So, in addition to the well-reported opioid crisis in America, something that rightly concerns all of us, there is another plague in the land – politicians addicted to being in office – the subject of my new book on the need for term limits, “Unshackling Democracy.”
Whether the onus of high taxes or the decline in decent jobs is your top priority, or your right and duty to pass on your traditional values to your children, you should be very concerned that the cords by which “we the people” control our government continue to get more and more threadbare. Congressional reform is, therefore, the fundamental correction that will make all our other priorities achievable.
It is fitting that Alabama be the place from which this reform is launched – not because we are the first state alphabetically but because this is the place where trust in the people has recently been breached. Congressman Gary Palmer publicly pledged to limit his term in office to ten years, a period of time which is due to expire in a few months. Although a decade in office already exceeds the six-year timeframe that term-limit proponents have long embraced, seeking to make life in Washington a career and violating a public pledge are two powerful reasons for sixth-district voters to fire the shot that will be heard all around the halls of Congress that Alabama is a state that respects constitutional principle and will lead the push to reform the Congress of the United States.
If elected to serve the people of this district – and my pledge to serve the people rather than serve my career interests is defined in part by my commitment to serve a maximum of three terms – I pledge to work to end careerism in Congress in the following ways.