There are dozens in Congress making a career out of being in Washington.
Sixteen U.S. senators have now been serving in the Senate at least 20 years. Seven of them have been serving for at least 30 years, while two, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have logged at least 40 years in the upper chamber.
Meanwhile, over in the House of Representatives, 71 current congressmen have served at least 20 years. Sixteen of them, including top Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, have held their seats for at least 30 years. Two members have spent more than 40 years in the lower chamber, and one, Democrat John Conyers of Michigan, has logged 52 years in the House. This is in the chamber where members must stand for re-election every two years.
Former Sen. Tom Coburn, who served six years in the House and 10 more in the Senate before retiring of his own accord, would like to abolish the “career politician” by instituting term limits.
“Our founders never intended for people to serve lengthy, lengthy terms in office,” Coburn said during a recent appearance on the nationally syndicated radio show “Caravan to Midnight.” “As a matter of fact, the only person at the Constitutional Convention who was against term limits was Alexander Hamilton. But they didn’t think they needed it; they called it rotation in office. And, of course, they were right until Congress fixed itself to where it’s the decider of everything, along with the Supreme Court and executive branch, and individuals in this country no longer have the power.
“And so, instead of Washington telling us what to do, what I would like to see is the American people start telling Washington what to do.”
The only way to achieve that, according to Coburn, is through an Article V amendments convention. Such a convention is one of two methods prescribed in Article V by which the U.S. Constitution may be amended. For a convention to be held, two-thirds of the state legislatures must submit an application to Congress asking for a convention. All applications must request a convention dealing with the same topic or topics.
Once an Article V convention begins, state delegates are free to propose and debate amendments to the Constitution. Any amendments the delegates agree on must be sent back to the states to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures before they can take effect.
Coburn has dedicated his post-Senate life to trying to get an Article V convention called. He has served as senior adviser to the Convention of States Project since 2015 and articulated the case for a convention in his book, “Smashing the DC Monopoly: Using Article V to Restore Freedom and Stop America’s Runaway Government.”
The Convention of States Project is attempting to garner support for a convention to propose amendments that would limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government. The imposition of term limits is one example of an amendment that such a convention could pass.
Not only does Coburn favor term limits for Congress members, he wants to term-limit judges as well. He noted too many judicial decisions in recent years have been based on a judge’s opinion rather than constitutional law.
After 16 years in Congress, Coburn witnessed firsthand how power can corrupt those who hold it.
“Power is incestuous; power leads to arrogance, and that arrogance leads to terrible judgment,” the former senator declared. “I saw it all the time. And so the object becomes, ‘How do I stay here?’ rather than, ‘How do I do what’s in the best interest of our country?'”
Coburn seeks an Article V convention that would also restore fiscal responsibility to the federal government. He considers this to be crucial, as the national debt has soared past $20 trillion.
“Here’s the question we should be asking, I believe: Is it morally correct for us to steal from our grandchildren today because the people we put in Washington refused to make the hard choices that are necessary to guarantee that we’ll have the opportunities that we’ve had and the potential economic well-being that many of us have experienced?” Coburn asked. “Or should we throw all of them out and elect people who are not career politicians to make good judgments for us and should we limit the terms so they won’t get enamored with the positive strokes like a puppy dog who when you quit petting him always put his head back under you trying to get more pets?”
To Coburn, it’s a choice between selfishly living for today or taking steps to alleviate the fiscal pain future generations will feel when the debt becomes too massive to handle. And it’s already close to being too massive to handle: Coburn pointed out if one combines all the debt in the U.S. – personal debt, corporate debt, small business debt, city debt, state debt and federal debt – it adds up to 250 percent of GDP. That’s a situation no country has ever survived.
“As soon as the first sale of bonds doesn’t get fully subscribed, it’s over for our country because nobody will loan us any money again,” Coburn warned. “So all this printed money that the Federal Reserve has done, $4.5 trillion – trillion dollars – will come home to roost in terms of hyperinflation. And so only those people with real assets, hard assets, will survive that. So if you want to discriminate against the middle class, the lower income and the poor, just keep doing what we’re doing now, because only the elites will be OK.”
Coburn believes most politicians in D.C. today don’t want to make the hard decisions that will primarily benefit future generations.
“There’s two types of people that go to Washington, and the minority are the people that really want to go there and solve the problems in the long term for our country,” he said. “The vast majority want to go there to get a pat on the back and have recognition and grab hold of the power because of their own insecurity. … They’ll do everything that’s politically expedient to look good now at home, with rare exception.”
So Coburn thinks it’s time for Americans to use the tool the founders gave them in Article V. He noted an Article V amendments convention is not a constitutional convention – the U.S. could not have a constitutional convention unless two-thirds of the states applied to eliminate the Constitution in its current form.
“We’re talking about an amendments convention in three specific areas,” he explained. “One is to limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government, and you do that mainly by restoring the Commerce Clause to its original intent. The second is for fiscal responsibility. … And then the third thing is to limit the terms of both appointed and elected officials.”
As Coburn notes in “Smashing the DC Monopoly,” there were attempts made to resolve the slavery issue through an amendments convention in the early 1800s. Those attempts failed, and it took a bloody civil war to finally bring an end to the practice of slavery in the United States. Coburn begs Americans to have the courage to ask for an Article V convention now before it’s too late to resolve the most pressing issues of our day.
“That’s why my valiant plea to the American people is get informed on what Article V is, learn what it is,” he implored. “We have to have courageous people that will stand up and spend part of their lives, giving part of their lives away to defend truth and to defend liberty and to defend an opportunity for the future for our kids.”
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