[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 51 (Friday, April 19, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3727-S3729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO LIMIT CONGRESSIONAL TERMS
The Senate resumed consideration of the joint resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. FRIST. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, the fundamental question of the debate on term limits
to me can be put very simply. Are we as a nation better served by a
system that encourages career politicians who over time grow entrenched
in Washington and increasingly removed from the concerns of the very
people who elected them or are we better served by an ever-changing
legislative body of citizens who bring with them those vast experiences
that color America, who have no political career to protect and who
serve and then return home to live under the laws that they helped
pass?
Next week, the Senate will get its chance to answer that fundamental
question. I draw upon my own personal experiences. I came directly to
the Senate a year and a half ago from the private sector. In fact, I
contrast this very Chamber before us, with its rich history and its
culture and its historical significance, with what I was doing 3 years
ago, and that is moving every day and too many nights in an operating
room.
It is that contrast, it is that perspective that colors much of what
I have to say about term limits. I have never served in elective
office, and I have had no previous ties to Washington, DC, or the
Federal Government before coming to this body. I ran on the issue of
term limits, and I pledged personally to serve no more than two terms.
It is because I believe in that fundamental concept of the citizen
legislator contributing in his or her own way based on his or her own
past experiences to a citizen legislature.
That unique perspective on Washington encouraged me to promote not
only the issue of term limits but to strongly support Senate Joint
Resolution 21. I now, having been here a year and a half, feel even
more strongly than 2 years ago when I was campaigning. Senate Joint
Resolution 21, a constitutional amendment providing for term limits,
serves as a steppingstone down that long road--and we have a long road
to go--to renew the citizens' respect, the citizens' faith, the
citizens' trust in their Federal Government.
Too often, Members of Congress are forced in the current system to
spend their time focusing on reelection, focusing on fundraising,
watching the polls, instead of doing what we need to be doing, and that
is doing what is best for the country. As a result, I truly feel that
Washington has become much more of a 2-year town, focused on the short
term rather than what it should be, a 20-year town with long-term
thinking.
One need look no further than the recent debate over Medicare and
entitlement reform to see how true this is. Because of the unrestrained
growth of entitlements, our Nation faces a true fiscal disaster within
15 years, yet this past Congress has been unable to have a reasoned,
meaningful debate on this most critical of issues. Why? Because of the
political ramifications of taking on, of addressing middle-class
entitlements. We missed a valuable opportunity to take real steps
toward reducing the deficit, eventually reducing the debt and truly
reining in entitlements.
I think it is time for us to pause a moment and ask a simple
question. If Members of Congress had been freed in large part from
reelection concerns, would politics have destroyed the debate that
prevented us once again from addressing these fundamental problems? The
answer to me is clear and the reason is obvious. As long as there are
careers to protect, there will be politics to play almost by
definition. The longer politicians stay in Washington, the more risk
averse they become. They become more attached and more detached from
that average citizen and they become more eager to spend the hard-
earned dollars of America's taxpayers. The answer is this resolution
before us today, Senate Joint Resolution 21.
What are the arguments against term limits? Many of my colleagues
oppose term limits on the grounds that we should not alter the
Constitution, and I think they have a point. As a conservative, I think
we have to be very careful before we alter the Constitution in any way,
and only in rare circumstances should this take place. In fact, the
first bill that I introduced in the Senate was the Electoral Rights
Enforcement Act of 1995, and it was a very simple statute that would
have given the States additional authority to enact term limits on
Members of their congressional delegation. Unfortunately, the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision in U.S. Term Limits versus Thornton mooted
that bill and made it clear that the only alternative, the only
remaining course available to us is a constitutional amendment.
Others cloud the debate on issues as to whether or not the term
limits will be retroactive or should be retroactive
[[Page S3728]]
or the technicalities or whether the real answer should be campaign
finance reform. The American people are not going to be fooled. They
understand. They have spoken loudly that they want term limits. Others
will say that we have term limits at the ballot box; that we can always
vote somebody out we do not like.
Once again, the American people recognize that you cannot vote
someone out easily. In fact, the statistics are that about 90 percent
of Senators running for reelection will win. And if you look at the
election of 2 years ago, when a new revolution took place, there were
11 new Senators and only 1 of those defeated an incumbent, full U.S.
Senator. The power of the incumbency is too strong. The answer is term
limits.
Finally, some opponents will contend that term limits will rob
Congress of experienced legislators who are necessary to the proper
functioning of our Government. And, yes, experienced legislators who
are good, who have contributed significantly will, after a period of
time, have to leave this body. Yet, the second half of that is, are
they absolutely necessary to the proper functioning of our Government?
And I would argue no. If our Government is so complex and so
complicated and so convoluted that only a full-time career politician,
a class of politicians that is here to stay forever, can run it, that
is not an argument against term limits; it is an argument for
drastically changing the way our Government does business.
Mr. President, I have an interest in history. As the only physician
in the U.S. Senate today, I have gone back to look at the number of
physicians in the Senate over time. It has been fascinating. Over the
last 100 years, there have been only eight physicians who served in the
U.S. Senate. Over the period of 1800 to 1899, that 100-year period, in
contrast to the 8 for the last 100 years, 37 physicians served in the
U.S. Senate.
You can argue that is good or that is bad, I would say, not
necessarily because they are physicians, but because they are another
profession, not just another lawyer in this body but another
profession. I would argue that is good; that is what the American
people want. It represents America today.
It is interesting to look back at that period of 1800 to 1849. Mr.
President, 23 physicians served in that period. If you look down the
list, Dr. Bateman was a Senator for 3 years, Dr. Borland for 5 years,
Dr. Campbell for 4 years, Dr. Harrison for 3 years, Dr. Kent for 4
years. The length of time these Senators served was short, was
narrower.
Shall we argue they did not contribute in a substantial way in that
period of time? I would argue absolutely not. You do not have to be
here for 12 years or for 18 years or for 24 years to contribute.
As I look through this history of physicians in the U.S. Senate, it
causes me to go back and reflect on that concept upon which this
country was founded, and that is the citizen legislator, someone who
comes from running a filling station, someone who comes from having a
farm, someone who comes from the practice of medicine here for a period
of time, from real jobs, after which they go back home and live under
the laws that were passed.
In closing, Americans understand that Government truly works best
when it is composed and comprised of citizens who have worked alongside
them, who still consider themselves part of the communities from which
they came. Yes, I truly feel that term limits will focus Members of
Congress on the issues at hand rather than that next election, or that
next fundraiser in preparation for that election. Members will not shy
away from tough decisions. The doors of Congress will be thrown open
with new ideas, innovative ideas, all brought to the table of citizen
legislators.
Yes, I feel we need term limits. The question remains for our Senate
colleagues, how long can we, will we, ignore the will of the American
people?
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the tally by half century
of physicians in the Senate that I referred to earlier be printed in
the Record, and I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
``Physicians in the Senate'' Speech Tally by Half Century
1750-1799: Bradford (1793-1797), Clayton (1798), Elmer
(1789-1791), Latimer (1795-1801).
1800-1849: Bateman (1826-1829), Bibb (1813-1816), Borland
(1848-1853), Campbell (1809-1813), Chambers (1825-1826),
Condit (1803-1817), Harper (1826), Harrison (1825-1828),
Hunter (1811-1821), Jones (1807), Kent (1833-1837), Leib
(1809-1814), Linn (1833-1843), Logan (1801-1807) Mitchell
(1804-1809), Morril (1817-1823), Naudain (1830-1836), Pinkney
(1819-1822), Spence (1836-1840) Storer (1817-1819), Sturgeon
(1840-1851), Tiffin (1807-1809), Ware (1821-1824).
1850-1899: Bates (1857-1859), Chilcott (1882-1883), Conover
(1873-1879), Cowan (1861-1867), Deboe (1897-1903), Dennis
(1873-1879), Fitch (1857-1861), Gallinger (1891-1918), Gwin
(1850-1855, 1857-1861), Miller (1871), Mitchell (1861),
Nourse (1857), Wade (1851-1869), Withers (1875-1881).
1900-1949: Ball (1903-1905, 1919-1925), Copeland (1923-
1938), Ferris (1923-1928), France (1917-1923), Hatfield
(1929-1935), Lane (1913-1917).
1950-present: Frist (1995-?), Gruening (1959-1969).
Total: 49 physicians in the Senate.
Note: Five Senators who overlapped half-centuries are
listed only under the half-century when their first terms
began.
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I wanted to note I am a strong supporter of
this term limits resolution, and I will engage in this debate again
next week as well and plan to vote for this.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Frist). The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, Senator Frist,
from Tennessee, because he made a very interesting point there, talking
about the number of physicians who served in this body for the first
100 years. I think the number was 37. We were just talking about that.
That was back when there were many fewer Members of the Senate. There
were only 15 States by 1800 or so, so we only had about 30 Senators.
Yet, a great number of them seem to have been physicians.
I think you can say that about a lot of other professions back then,
too. As time has gone on, that number has diminished. We have fewer and
fewer people who have done anything except be in politics. So, again, I
think he is a good example of the citizen legislator.
He and I both came to the Senate together a little over a year ago,
neither one of us having run for office before. We vowed, together,
that we would do what we could to advance the concept of a citizen
legislator and fight for term limits. As we said earlier, this is the
first time in 49 years that we will have a vote on term limits in this
body.
I would like to just very briefly respond to a couple of the comments
that the Senator from Vermont made earlier about term limits. The
opponents of term limits, of course, are a little bit between a rock
and a hard place. They have a tremendous burden to overcome. One of
those burdens is the fact that, as this chart indicates here, 75
percent of the people--according to Luntz Research Co.--75 percent of
the people are in support of term limits and only 16 percent of the
people oppose it. So, what many of the opponents have done is tried
their best to talk Members here into not supporting the term-limits
concept. In the process, they have personalized the debate.
They talk in terms of how it will affect this Member or how it will
affect that Member or the majority leader's situation, the President
pro tempore's situation, individual Members on both sides of the aisle.
I think that points up a problem that we have in this body overall. It
is a problem with this debate; that is, the personalizing of the
debate, the personalizing of it. The point is that it does not matter
how it affects individual Members. It does not matter that some Member
might have served here for a long time and might be entitled to another
two terms. What we are trying to do is fashion something that
eventually has a chance of passing and becoming law. It is irrelevant
as to what has gone on in the past. What is relevant is this country
and what is relevant is this body as an institution as we go into the
next century.
If you want to make the argument that this would lower the quality of
this body, that this would hurt the United States, then that is, I
think, a valid argument. But to argue that a person cannot support term
limits because he has already been here for awhile, I think that is an
invalid argument. That is an attempt to label people as hypocrites. So
the opponents of term limits say this is not real term
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limits. You have a proposition here that will allow two more terms, 12
years. That is going to be extremely difficult to get passed. It has
taken 49 years to get another vote on it as it is.
So we say, let us have something reasonable, regardless of the past.
The system has served us pretty well in the past. We balanced the
budget up to 1967. Let us concentrate on the future --another 12 years.
But opponents of term limits say, no, that is not good enough. Let us
fashion something that we know is impossible of getting passed, like
making it retroactive. That will be consistent. That will be
nonhypocritical.
Perfection should not be the enemy of the good. The strategy is
obvious on its face. The opponents of term limits are not interested in
what they would call real term limits or genuine term limits. The
opponents of term limits are interested in deflecting the debate from
the future of this Nation onto individual Members and saying you cannot
vote for term limits because you think that now we have dug ourselves
into this hopeless ditch of debt, that you cannot vote for term limits
for the future knowing it would be a few years before the ratification
process would even have an opportunity to be completed. Then you have
another 12 years. You cannot vote for that because you would be accused
of being a hypocrite because you have been here for a while.
That is a part of the ``me'' generation, Mr. President. We criticize
our kids for a lot of things and ourselves as part of the ``me''
generation--me, me, me, self-centered. The same thing is true with this
body--totally, totally consumed with ourselves as individuals and how
things will affect us.
Senator Jones here, we would have lost the benefit of his services if
we had term limits. Well, there are millions of Mr. Joneses out there
who might be Senator Joneses who might be better than Senator Jones. We
have 250 million people in this country, and I do not even know what
fraction of 1 percent have ever served in this body.
Are we so self-centered and conceited and blinded that we think that
this fraction of 1 percent are the only people qualified because we
spent a few years up here spending other people's money and regulating
other people's lives that we have the only expertise in America that
qualifies us to sit here?
Let us, as we go forward with this debate next week, not personalize
this thing. Let us not personalize this debate. Let us not accuse
people of being hypocrites. Let us not concentrate on the past. You can
make an argument that in the past we did not need this. We fought two
world wars, we went through a Great Depression, and we were always able
to come back and balance the budget in short order. We balanced the
budget up until 1969.
Recently things have gotten out of hand with the growth of Government
and the growth of spending, the proliferation of interest groups and
the pressures on this body, of the desire for constant reelection,
never having the will to say no to anybody, but always wanting to say,
``Yes, you can have this. We can increase this program at 10 percent a
year because we want your vote and we want your financial support and
we want this system of professional politicians that we have always
had.''
It has gotten us into a quagmire that our kids will find it hopeless
to dig themselves out of. We are bankrupting this country in short
order. We all know it, and it constitutes criminal negligence if we do
not do what we can about it.
I have heard many, many times, and I heard again today, ``We have
term limits; we have term limits, they are called elections.'' If you
want to call the present system term limits, you are going to have to
convince me that people have a decent shot at getting what they want
from the present system, what they demand.
If you are talking about electoral politics, unless you are an
incumbent, you are not going to have access to the money to even run.
We have millions of citizens out there who would like to serve and have
the opportunity to serve, but they know, with all of the advantages of
incumbency and all of the money that incumbency brings in terms of
contributions, why bother? Why bother?
They say, ``Well, there is a lot of turnover.'' That is for various
reasons. Some people want to run for other offices; some people leave
town one step ahead of the sheriff; some people want to go back and
live in the real world. There are a lot of reasons for that. But the
fact of the matter is, of those who want to stay, of those who run for
reelection, about 90 percent still get reelected in the middle of all
this turnover.
So, the question is not what the turnover rate is. It goes up and
down. The question is, What is the motivation of the overwhelming
majority of the people who serve? If they ultimately decide to leave
for whatever reason, or even maybe within their term for whatever
reason, that still does not answer the question, what was their
motivation while they were there?
I firmly believe that if that motivation is, in large part, not
totally, but in large part, simply staying and getting reelected and
doing the things necessary to stay in office year in and year out,
because the longer you stay the less touch you have with the real world
and, in some cases, the less you feel like you will be able to do, and
then age catches up with you perhaps and you become more and more
desperate to stay and you are willing to do more and more things to
stay--what is the motivation of those kind of people?
The motivation of those kind of people to point out that ``We cannot
increase your program, madam, at 10 percent this year. We maybe could
increase it 6 or 7 percent. But your check might be a little less than
what you were expecting it to be from the Federal Government.'' That is
dangerous. That is dangerous, and we need people in this body who are
willing to risk a little danger. That is what we do not have, and that
is what this is all about.
So as I say, next week we can get back on the central issue here:
What is best going to equip this country to meet the challenges of the
next century--as we, as sure as I am standing here, are bankrupting
this country--not how it affects some individual Members. We will be
lucky if we are remembered 24 hours after we leave. It does not have to
do with that.
So with that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thompson). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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