MTM - Interview with Joe Wolverton..What's Wrong with Term Limits

Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague

our culture and our country, hosted by author and physician Dr. Robert Jackson, and his

wife, Carlotta, and daughter Hannah Miller.

So listen up, because the doctor is the end.

Welcome to More Than Medicine.

I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from

the country doctors, rusty, dusty scrapbook.

Well, again, this week I'm honored to have Joe Wilverton with me, and we're continuing

our conversation about the constitutional convention, why that's not a great idea at all.

Last week we talked about the balance budget, and why we don't have a balance budget, and

why a constitutional convention is never going to give us a balanced budget.

And I've asked Joe to come back one more time this week, and talk to us about term limits,

and why term limits is not a constitutional idea, and not a good idea at all.

Now Joe, if you don't mind, identify yourself again, like you've done at the beginning

of each podcast, so that my folks will understand what your authority is as a constitution

lawyer.

So if you don't mind, let's start off with that.

Well, that's interesting.

I was just reading this morning in the Bible when Jesus talked about the importance of

authority.

So here you are asking my, the authority with which I speak.

So it's interesting the way those things work out, I read about it this morning and talk

about it this evening.

So basically, big work of the John Burr society is an independent contractor and providing

lots of information on the Constitution, content on the Constitution.

Well, finally, they just, they created a job for me, the Constitutional Law Scholar, which

basically means that anything the John Burr society produces, that touches and concerns,

the Constitution, that that thing will have to be approved by me before it's made public,

that we want to be consistent in our messaging with regard to the Constitution and its interpretation

for today's world.

And so they, in respect to the work I've done in the past, over the past, I guess, 30

years they, I've been working for them for 15 or more and, oh gosh, 20 or more now.

And they recognized that and honored me with that title of their Constitutional Law Scholar.

So I get invited to be on podcasts and different webinars and different forums and events to

speak on issues of Constitutionality and how the, how the John Burr society believes that

those issues are covered by the Constitution and how they apply to us today.

And that's what I do and that's what I'm doing with you.

When my patients tell me that somebody created a job for them, usually that means somebody

felt sorry for them and that they couldn't get a job.

That could be true.

Now I'm not going to deny that that's true.

They could have seen me in there and been like, man, we've had this boy in here for so

a long lives while he'll fill a bone at it.

I hear you.

I hear you.

That could have been it.

But I'm grateful for the bone they threw at you and tell you that.

All right.

Well, let's, let's talk about term limits now and let me, let me put it to you this way.

Every time we talk about a constitutional convention and I begin to say to people, I don't think

that's a great idea and I don't think it's constitutional.

And they begin to say, well, what about term limits?

Don't you think that we need to have a constitutional convention so that we can authorize term limits?

What do you say to that?

Well, first of all, I say, ask that person, do you really think that's what's going to happen?

If it were such a good idea and so many people believed in it as COS claims, that's convention

of states, they're the primary engine moving this thing along toward trying to get a constitutional

convention called their, the convention of states or COS, they're the, they're the main

drive behind this, they're the, the deep pockets, the billionaire oil money that's behind

all this.

And they, if they were, they've been doing this for over 20 years and if this were such

a good idea, wouldn't it have happened, first of all, a second of all, do you really think

that we're going to get people in that convention who are able to tinker all they want with

the constitution and that they're going to actually sit there and abide by, abide by

rules.

Does Congress abide by the rules now?

Nope, nope, nope.

Does the executive abide by the rules as a Supreme Court?

No.

Why all of a sudden are we going to expect people who don't abide by the rules now to abide

by the rules then?

They won't.

And we won't get term limits and for, and the second thing I would say to them is we don't

need them, Doug.

We do not need term limits because guess what?

We already have them.

We have term limits in the constitution, right?

If you're a senator, you serve for six years.

If you're a congressman, you serve, you know, House Representative, you serve for two

years.

If you're a president, you serve for four years.

Those are term limits.

Those are called term limits.

And we have them.

So guess what?

The reason we have the return of so many corrupt politicians is not the fault of the corrupt

politicians.

It's our fault.

We're the reason.

We're calling for terminates to do what?

To do something for us that we should be able to do for ourselves.

It's just another to me.

It's another growth of the, of the nanny state.

We just want the nanny state to do for us what we refuse to do for ourselves, which is

to reject corrupt politicians and get rid of them.

But guess what, Doug?

We're not going to do that because in our heart, we do not desire that.

We enjoy the spoils of corrupt politicians.

Yep.

Great.

We want them to say.

The term limits, guess what, guess who's going to represent Nancy Pelosi's district next

time, another Nancy Pelosi?

If you put in term limits, all of a sudden, all these people have been waiting on her to

retire or die or whatever, they're going to step in.

And it's because of the, the, the constituency, it's not because of the constitution.

The constitution can turn, contains term limits, read it.

There are term limits in the constitution.

It's the constituency that is failing us, not the constitution.

And I want to read this to you, to your readers.

I know they appreciate this because of who they are, who you are.

This is because the COS, man, they love to hide behind the skirts of the founding fathers.

They love it so much and they misquote them and they quote them out of context.

But I'm a quote to you, Alexander Hamilton, speaking on the very subject of an amendment

to limit terms, let us, this is from Federalist number 72.

Now it may be a little hard on saying, but listen to it, pay attention.

He says, nothing appears more plausible at first sight, but more ill-founded upon close

inspection than a scheme that in relation to the present point term limits has some

respectable advocates.

I mean that of that of continuing the chief magistrate in office for a certain time,

and then excluding him from it for either a limited period or forever thereafter.

The exclusion whether temporary or perpetual would have nearly the same effects, and those

effects for the most part would be pernicious and not salutary.

And then he goes on to say, one of the ill effects of the exclusion, so he's talking about

term limits.

The ill effects would be a diminution of the inducements to good behavior.

There are few men who would not feel less zeal in the discharge of a duty when they

were conscious that the advantages of the station to which it was connected must be relinquished

at an determinate period, then when they were permitted to obtain a hope of obtaining

by merit a continuance of that position.

Now that's Alexander Hamilton saying, it appears in our modern language, so he says nothing

appears to be a better idea than term limits.

However, it is not a good idea because it would be the effects of it would be more dangerous

than helpful.

He says one of the most prominent effects of a term limits bill would be a, what we would

call a lame duck.

That's right.

Lame duck.

Exactly.

Alexander Hamilton said that they would be, how did he say it, that they would not feel

as much zeal in a discharge of their duty if they knew that the advantages of their

office were about to end?

That if you've got no fear or hope of being reelected, then you're not going to care

what you do.

We would say they would be less responsive to the people.

They will be a largely lame duck and they don't end up, come on, let's just talk honestly.

A term limits doesn't change anything.

It doesn't change anything.

A term limits bill, it's not going to change us and we're the reason these people keep

getting elected.

It's most baffling to those of us who study history and study the gospel at the same time.

It's baffling to think how we think that somehow putting an extra line in a constitution

is going to change us into people who vote for virtuous politicians.

How is that going to happen?

That's only going to happen if we decide to change what we want out of government.

If we want goods and services and money and construction jobs and all of this and food

stamps and public education, if we want all these things from government, then no term

limit bill will ever make any difference because we're going to keep electing the same

old, same old.

That's right.

And that's just that no COS person can argue against that.

The founders, they envision that two things would be a check on the federal government.

Number one, the state legislators through the state legislators control the Senate, well

that's all gone.

Number two, frequent elections, right, frequent elections.

That is term limits at the Constitutional Convention.

You have someone like Governor Morris who said that term limits would have nothing but

a negative impact on motivation for good government.

You're not going to want to do something if you know, I mean, think about it.

If a criminal breaks into house and the alarm starts going off and he knows he's got

five minutes for the cops get there, why he's going to go get busy getting everything

he can and getting out before those five minutes are over, well that's the way these

politicians would be.

If I say to you, you can't be reelected and you only have this two years or this six

years or this four years to do whatever you want to, why you're going to be like that

prison.

You're going to get something into the bag just hoping you get something, you know,

get something value that criminal.

And that's what it's going to create essentially a criminal class of congressman because like

Alexander Hamilton said, they don't care.

They don't care.

The idea that they can't be rewarded by re-election induces even the most honest man

to be corrupt.

If I cannot be re-elected on my merit as a congressman, why would I be a good congressman?

It tends to make men do everything they can for their friends or family while they're

in office that last four years, two years, six years, whatever have a long it is.

That's right.

They have authority and power to do things for their friends or family.

And then they're out and they can't come back in and they don't care what anybody thinks

about it.

And they take advantage of that position and that influence for that last couple of years

until they're outed by term limits.

Right.

And even, you know, you take, like I said, takes the most honest man.

He knows, take, you know, in my opinion, the most honest congressman is Thomas Massey.

You take Thomas Massey and tell him, well, you're not going to be able to be re-elected.

Even he will say, well, there's no way I get done what I need to get done in two years

about returning this country to its constitutional anchor.

There's no way to do that in two years.

So I might as well not worry about it.

And either he doesn't run or he doesn't get anything accomplished because he recognizes

that two years in Washington is like two minutes underwater.

That's right.

You know, and so he doesn't bother.

And this makes it where good men either don't run or they don't.

They don't get anything accomplished because they know they're not going to be rewarded

for their faithfulness.

Yep.

Yep.

And it's like Hamilton said at the end of that paragraph, he said, the most that could

be expected for most men in such a situation is not doing harm rather than the positive

merit of doing good.

The most we can hope for, by term limits as well, we hope this congressman doesn't do

any harm in two years because that's what's going to happen because good men, like I said,

will recognize that their time, even if they're the best, most cautiously minded congressman,

is going to be cut short and they will not be rewarded for their faithfulness.

If there's no incentive to be constitutionally minded, if you remove that incentive of reward,

if you remove the incentive of a currency, you remove from most people the desire to do

as much good as they could have.

Yep.

That's just a fact of life, dog.

If you told you're going to be hired for a week at this job, if you need, you know,

think about temp jobs.

I don't know if you've ever had a temp job, but there's a time in my life where I did

you some temp jobs.

If I hired this temp place for two weeks, guess how much effort I put in, none.

I knew at the end of two weeks, I was going to be working somewhere else.

We're turning congress and the courts and the president into temp jobs, where everyone's

just biting their time, doing whatever until the term of office until the two weeks, whatever,

until the time is up.

You're turning the government into a bunch of temp workers, like everybody who's ever

been a temp worker or hired a temp worker knows how those people, when I was a lawyer, I

had a temp, I hired a temp worker to be a secretary for me.

And boy, I got nothing out of that dude, nothing, because he knew in a couple of weeks he

was gone.

And that's true.

Right?

I only needed a bridge of gap and he knew that.

So that will be what we get if these people insist that they pour enough money into convincing

enough state legislators to call a convention, which is that I'm convinced they won't, because

they haven't done it in 25 years with the amount of money they poured into it, it ain't

going to happen.

Right?

It's not going to happen.

It's going to be difficult to God for that, because that would be, we would come out with

a constitution that neither you nor I would recognize, and neither you nor I, or any of your

listeners, would want to live on.

Let me tell you that, and I'll say this, I think it's so important, COS offers a bunch

of promises that they know they will never ask to fulfill.

Right?

Because they won't be able to, it's like when any politician makes a promise on the campaign

trail, they know that they'll never have to fulfill that promise.

Why?

Because maybe they don't get elected, and you don't have to worry about it then, but if they

do get elected, then they can say, man up here is this gridlock on Capitol Hill, I can't

get anything done up here, the Democrats, they won't let anything happen, the Republicans,

they obstruct everything, I can't get it done.

And so then you have an excuse for not fulfilling your promises.

Well, that's COS.

Right now, they're just illusory, what we call an illusory promises, promises you never

have to worry about fulfilling, right?

And if this convention were to happen, well then they'll have a million excuses of why

it didn't happen only they wanted it to.

Well, this legislator went off the rails, or man, they changed the rules of the last

minute, and it won't matter.

So when they go to these, these conventions, when they go to these forums, when they go

to these meetings, trying to convince people to sign on with COS, they know that they're

making promises they'll never have to fulfill.

And that's a really powerful thing, because what can you do, it's like we talked about

last time, you can tell people anything and everything they want to hear.

If you know that you'll never have to do anything about these promises, there's nothing

that you won't promise.

I promise every man, a 40 acres in a mule.

Right?

I promise you unicorns will cry gold nuggets in your yard every morning.

It doesn't matter.

It just doesn't matter, because they'll never have to do anything.

And with term limits, stop, gosh, this is when it gets me so bad, because it's such a

poor reflection of who we are.

Yeah.

We're the reason that we don't have term limits, not the Constitution, the constituency,

the Constitution does have term limits.

Yeah.

Look, read the document, two years for Congress, four years for president, six years

for senator, it has term limits.

Yeah.

That's right.

And the reason we, the reason we look and say, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell and Robert

Bird and, you know, any one of these people, they serve for 80 year, whatever was, you

know, yeah, but they were voted into office.

Yep.

They're just.

They were voted by people.

The constituency wanted those people.

I still see people voting for that Lindsey Graham is going to win.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

How is Lindsey Graham voted by the people of South Carolina every six years, but he is?

Yep.

And, you know, my friend Evan is working against his campaign and he just, you know, reports.

It's a, it's an uphill slog because these people really just, they get addicted to

the benefits that a person of Lindsey Graham's stature gets sent to South Carolina, right?

They like the jobs and the roads and the new, the new city halls and the new gyms and

all these things that he sends them by virtue of his position.

So they're never going to, they don't, they're not going to vote for someone who promises

to be constitutional because being constitutional means all that stuff dries up overnight.

Right.

Right.

And so they look at Lindsey Graham, who runs as a Republican, but legislates as a communist.

That's right.

Exactly.

And they vote for him because why?

Because we just believe things when people say them, particularly when they're said

by someone who has 24, seven unlimited free access to the media.

If that man opens his mouth, someone's going to be there to record it.

And if you're Joe six pack running against him, why you've got to pay for advertising,

you've got to pay to for town halls to try and get in front of the people.

You've got to try and induce the people to come to your meeting.

But Lindsey Graham, I don't have to worry about all that because he's an incumbent.

Why is he an incumbent?

Because the people of South Carolina keep voting for him.

That's right.

So ask not for whom the bill tolls, you know, it's that whole man in the mirror.

You want term limits, well, you got them, but Bibi, there you go.

There you go, sir, Mr. Mrs. America, I just gave you term limits.

It's called two years, four years and six years.

There you go.

We don't need a constitutional convention.

We don't need a term limits amendment.

I just gave you.

Well, that only matters.

If the person voting changes his heart and desires to see the Constitution followed, we don't

need it fixed.

We need it followed up.

That's all.

We don't need it fixed.

We need to follow.

And I think and thanks, you know, we're thankful for you and all you do in that regard

to try and educate people, the this scheme of term limits would be so unconstitutional.

And frankly, doc, so unrepublican, this is the thing that gets me is, you know, what

is a republic?

It's James Madison says, it's a scheme of government whereby the people rule through

elected representatives.

Well, think about term limits.

You're telling the people, I don't care who you want to vote for, that person's no longer

eligible.

I'll think about how unrepublican that is and think about Article 4, doc.

Article 4 of the Constitution guarantees to every state in the union a republican form

of government.

Yep.

Now think about that.

That is a constitutional guarantee and there are a few of those.

It guarantees to every state, a republican form of government where you think about this,

all the listeners here of the good doctor show, listen to this.

By telling you, you cannot vote for someone, doesn't that take away your republican right

to vote?

It does.

We in South Carolina would have never had a strong thumb in that we really liked and voted

for over and over and over again if we had term limited him right out of office.

We would not have a Thomas Massey up there fighting against all this unconstitutional war

stuff.

That's right.

And against the Epstein stuff and against second amendment restriction stuff, he would

be, he would have been gone years ago and all the good ones would be gone, but I, and

that's true.

It creates a complete temp, temp work or Congress, but I want you to think about this.

It denies people their right to vote for the person that they believe would be best for

the job.

Now, whether or not I agree that that person would be best for the job is irrelevant with

regard to the analysis of republican form of government, a republican form of government

guarantees the right of the people to elect their representatives.

Well, if I tell you that that guy has been term limited out and you can't vote for him,

I've just denied you the right to vote for the person you see most fit.

And this is the constitutional challenge that the COS and Convention of States people cannot

get asked.

And I'm going to tell you, Doc, that if they ever were to get close to getting this convention

called, it wouldn't happen for years because we would tie it up in the courts.

Because we would challenge such a convention on violation of Article 4 and the guarantee

of republican form of government.

You're right.

You're exactly right.

All right.

Well, listen.

This is good stuff, Joe.

I mean, he gives my folks a lot to listen to, think about and I really appreciate it.

Now, I got one more thing I want us to talk about if you can come back one more time next

week.

I want us to talk about the authority and right of the states to nullify federal overreach.

And every time you talk about nullification, folks get all tied up in a knot and they

think, well, the federal government is going to come in with tanks and military to set

us straight if we try to nullify an action or a overreach of the federal government.

And I want us to talk about that.

And I want our listeners to hear about the state's privilege and authority and their right

to actually nullify federal overreach.

Let's not get started because I know if we get started, we'll never start.

So let's just hold that off for next week and I think it is a cliffhanger, but it's

an amazing discussion that we need to talk about and you probably need to give us some material

to read.

Next time we talk about it, let's have some suggested reading material.

Can we do that?

Well, yeah.

Let's do that today and have people kind of prepared for the discussion.

If they go to jbs.org, slash states, all right.

And just read anything and everything.

Watch the video on that page.

Read everything.

Look at everything and you'll be prepared for this discussion.

And it'll be a little bit like softening the beach for some people who've taken a stand

against nullification.

There's a video there.

There's a couple paragraphs of an intro.

And then we have overview, we have action tools, we have lessons.

You know, it has a link to my book, What Degree of Madness, which is all about how to return

power to the states and it has a link to it there.

So all of that stuff is there and available.

And I would encourage your listeners to please take availability of that is jbs.org slash

states.

Good.

Good.

All right.

Time's up.

Listen, thank you Joe Wolverton.

I appreciate your time and you're listening to more than medicine.

I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson.

Remember this, Jesus loves you and your doctor loves you.

We'll be back again next week until then.

May the Lord bless you.

Real good.

Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine.

For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or to schedule a speaking engagement,

go to my Facebook page, Instagram or web page at JacksonFamilyMetistry.com.

Also, don't forget to check out Dr. Jackson's books that are available on the website.

On Amazon, his third book, Turkey Tales and Bible Truths and his father's biography

on laughter-silvered waves, the story of a country doctor, a family man, a patriot, and

a political activist.

This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Productions.