Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) speaks at the Ohio Statehouse about Congressional term limits.
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00:00important of the state of Ohio. So I will turn the podium over to represent at work.
00:04Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to thank the governor for being here with us today. I am
00:08very grateful also for the speaker's support in this process as we introduce House Joint
00:12Resolution 3. So about two weeks ago, I introduced this resolution in committee,
00:18and we are to this day receiving quite a bit of momentum on this, both in Ohio and nationwide.
00:24We have teamed up with the U.S. Term Limits Organization, who operates on the national
00:29level, and they have helped with really creating some momentum among our grassroots and getting
00:35the word out that this resolution is moving in Ohio. So I would like to introduce to you
00:40what this is. If you will give me just a moment. Okay. So today I am proud to discuss House Joint
00:49Resolution 3, a resolution recently introduced calling for congressional term limits. This is
00:55not a partisan issue. It is a people issue. Across Ohio and across the country, the demand for
01:00congressional term limits is strong and bipartisan. According to a recent survey, 78% of Ohio voters
01:08support term limits, and 77% support Ohio taking direct action to make it happen. Voters are tired
01:15of Washington politicians spending decades in office, disconnected from the people they are
01:21represented, or they're elected to serve. They want change, and they're looking for that change
01:26right now. Let me take a moment to thank the two leaders. I already have done that. Governor DeSantis,
01:32Speaker Matt Huffman, both have been instrumental in the movement of this resolution here in Ohio,
01:37and it is a pleasure to stand with them here today.
01:40H.J.R. 3 is a formal call from the state of Ohio urging Congress to propose an amendment to the
01:46U.S. Constitution imposing term limits on its own members. This resolution is part of a larger,
01:52growing movement among states to demand action. This message is simple. The states are watching,
01:58and we look for Congress to act. I want to take a moment to explain how Article 5 works in the U.S.
02:03Constitution. A joint resolution, like H.J.R. 3, is a formal statement of the General Assembly.
02:11It does not require the governor's signature, but it goes through the same legislative process,
02:16committee hearings, floor votes in both chambers, and caucus discussions to gain the support needed
02:22to pass. Throughout this process, I've had the chance to engage in meaningful conversations with
02:27colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Many have shared stories from their districts where
02:31constituents are voicing frustration with the gridlock and entrenched interests in Washington.
02:37These conversations have reinforced what we already know. The people are ahead of politicians
02:42on this issue. They see term limits not as a partisan agenda, but as a common-sense reform
02:48that will restore trust and opportunity in our federal government.
02:52I'm going to jump forward here and introduce to you Governor Ron DeSantis. I am sure you're looking
02:57forward to his thoughts on this movement. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being here.
03:01Please help me in welcoming Governor DeSantis. Well, thanks so much. It's Ohio and Florida,
03:07a very interesting relationship, because we obviously have been a landing spot for people
03:11from a lot of different states. If you're down in Boca Raton, it's kind of like the sixth borough of New York,
03:16right? But you take a map of Florida, you can throw a dart and hit anywhere on that map,
03:22and you will find people from Ohio. I mean, Southern Florida, Central Florida, Northeast Florida,
03:27you name it, they're there. And I think I'm proof of that. My mom is from Youngstown. My dad went to
03:34Youngstown State after growing up in Western Pennsylvania. And my wife grew up in Troy, Ohio,
03:40and both of her parents are Ohio State Buckeye graduates. And I do extend my congratulations
03:46for the national championship victory. There was a time when the national championship really went
03:51through the state of Florida. It's been a while since any of our schools have been at that level.
03:56We think we may see something out of the Florida Gators this year. We had high hopes for the Seminoles
04:01a couple years ago. So we'll see what happens. But we do have a lot of similarities, including
04:08on political and governance. And this term limits movement is something I've been a part of for a
04:14number of years. I served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to becoming governor.
04:20I always remind people that I've recovered from that experience, but that experience did leave
04:25a mark about how Washington works and how the incentives to do really good policy are
04:31just skewed away from that. People get up there and basically they're told you've got to pay your
04:38dues, you've got to stay there, and the seniority and the longevity, and people want that to be
04:42their career. We have members that have been there for 30, 40 years, including people like Nancy Pelosi.
04:48That is not, I think, how the founding fathers envisioned this. I thought they thought at the time,
04:53you're going to get on horseback from somewhere in Virginia and go up to New York, which is where the
04:58capital was originally, or go to Philadelphia, or eventually Washington, D.C., that's not something
05:03you're going to want to be doing for 30 years. And so they talked about the need for term limits and
05:09decided that probably you probably don't need it. But I think that the incentives have really changed
05:13now. Even though Congress is almost universally disapproved of by the public year after year,
05:2095, 98 percent of incumbents are reelected. It's not enough to say, well, people can just vote people out
05:27because the incumbents have skewed the system and financing and campaign regulations to be able
05:33to make it difficult to dislodge them. But this Article V convention from the states is something
05:40that Florida has certified. We now have more and more states, up to 12. And this really just started
05:45a few years ago in earnest. Ohio is naturally the next state to take this on and do. And I think it
05:52would be important to advance the movement of term limits. But I also think just Ohio being an important
05:57state politically in the history of our country, but certainly right now in modern and with the
06:02modern Republican Party of being one of the strongest Republican states now that has a large population,
06:07I think symbolically would be really, really important. You look at the national debt. You look
06:13at the lack of productivity in Congress. I'm also a supporter, full disclosure, of the balanced budget
06:19resolution that Ohio has passed, Florida's passed. I think we're now up to 27, 28 states. I think you're
06:25going to end up seeing that get into the 30s very soon. I think the incentives for them to basically
06:31bankrupt the country are strong. If you had a balanced budget amendment, it would change the
06:35incentives. If you had term limits, it will change the incentives. You know you have a limited amount
06:39of time, so make something of it. Do some big things that are actually going to leave a legacy that you
06:46can look back on. And I also think it's important that you serve in the House, you serve in the Senate.
06:51That's great and do that, but at some point, you ought to live under the laws that you pass and see
06:57whether that was good work or not. And what happens in modern Congress, once they get into that, they
07:02kind of become part of a separate political class that's not really ever back in normal society in
07:09many instances. Because even when people serve 20, 30 years, a lot of times they just stay in Washington
07:14after that. So this is a very positive reform. I think if the founding fathers were here today,
07:19people like James Madison would support term limits, giving all the changes that have happened
07:25over these many, many decades. And I have never seen an issue. And Representative Workman hit it
07:31right on the head. It's not a partisan issue. Republican, Democrat, rich, poor, male, female,
07:37black, white, it doesn't matter. People support term limits. You ought to do the right thing for the
07:42right reason. But this happens to also be very good politics for the members of the Ohio legislature
07:48to sign up for, because people are going to want to see this as something that is getting legs.
07:55And it will get legs. And if Ohio comes, that's going to lead to many more states, I think,
08:00pretty shortly doing it. And as you build, you really, really have strongmen. Now people say,
08:05well, you've never done a convention of the states. Could you have a runaway convention and just have
08:11them write an entirely new constitution? The answer to that is basically no. There's two ways to propose
08:18amendments. The Congress can propose it with two-thirds of each body, or the states can propose
08:24it with two-thirds of the states, which would be 34 states. So you can do that. Ratifying it is the
08:31same no matter if Congress or the state proposes it. It requires three-quarters of the states of this
08:37country, 38 states, to ratify an amendment to the Constitution. I don't think 38 states are going
08:43to ratify the work of a, quote, runaway convention. But even if you're concerned about that, there's
08:49nothing preventing Ohio, if they certify this, for putting restrictions on what the delegates are
08:54allowed to do. You can have the governor recall delegates that are straying from that. I don't think
08:59it would come to that. I really don't. Term limits is popular. It could absolutely get three-quarters
09:05of the states to be ratified. You know, really crazy changes, like, you know, people have talked
09:10about, oh, they could go after the Second Amendment. None of that is going to have any chance to get
09:15ratified. So I don't think it's an appropriate concern. And I also think if that's a concern you
09:20had, you're basically saying that the founding fathers got it wrong. I think the founding fathers got
09:24it right. I think they knew that constitutions periodically needed to be amended. Not something
09:30you should do lightly. It's not something you should do every year. But sometimes they needed
09:35that. And if you lodged it only in Congress, if Congress was the problem, then the people would have
09:41no recourse to make the changes that are necessary. So the states created the federal government, not
09:46the other way around. It was only natural that the states would also be able to propose amendments to
09:52the Constitution, understanding that no matter who proposes it, the states or the Congress,
09:57three-quarters of the states must ratify any changes to the Constitution. So I commend the speaker.
10:03I commend the representatives here at Ohio for doing this. This is kind of a passion project of mine.
10:09I've been involved in this issue for a number of years. I've rarely seen an issue that no matter what
10:14audience I'm speaking in front of, we'll get a more positive response in any part of the state of
10:20Florida or heck, any place I've been in the country where this has come up, people know that this is the
10:25right thing to do. So I look forward to seeing progress here. If there's anything we can do to
10:29help in other states, I'm willing to do it because I do think it's important for the future of the
10:33country. With that, we'll take some questions.
10:34I guess you said that there would not be a wrong way, but you did also just mention the idea of like the
10:45balanced budget. So I mean, you already have mentioned it.
10:49Well, that's separate. So if you start it up, I mean, what's going to stop the people that go into the
10:55extension from taking up home, right? Well, I think if both were certified, then that would be fine. If the
11:02balanced budget doesn't have the certification, then it should not be considered. But I think it
11:06will. I think balanced budget can get certified too. So it's potentially both. Now we've also
11:10said to people that are concerned about what would happen if the states met and wrote an amendment
11:15in a convention. The reality is this, this has never actually been done before because any time an
11:21amendment's gotten close, Congress responds by basically writing one of their own. So I really
11:26believe on balanced budget. We're in the high 20s. If we get to the kind of 32 states, 33, I do think
11:33you'll see Congress respond by writing an amendment and then sending that to the states for
11:38ratification. And I honestly think the same thing will likely happen with term limits. If we get to
11:4230, 31, 32 states, I think they're going to want to control that. They're going to want to write an
11:48amendment and then send it to the states if they see it. So I do anticipate in both instances that you
11:54would likely force Congress to act prior to getting the 34 states. I just think practically
12:00that will happen. But I'm also not somebody that believes somehow the states aren't capable
12:05of proposing an amendment. I think the founders put that in for a reason. I think we absolutely
12:10could propose it. And then I think the states, once it's written, once it's passed by the states
12:16on that initial proposal, then the states can debate it in their state legislatures, just like
12:21we've done every constitutional amendment that's been ratified in this country's history.
12:25Andrew?
12:26When state politicians come here to talk about stuff, that makes me wonder if they're running
12:30for national office. You've run for president once before. Are you thinking about doing that again?
12:34This has nothing to do with running for anything. I've been involved in term limits for probably
12:3915 years now. I've done this as a congressman. I was the one that introduced the U.S. term limits
12:44resolution to pose limits on members of Congress. Didn't get a whole lot of support in Congress,
12:49as you can imagine. And so since I've been governor, any time I've had an opportunity to do it,
12:54I've done it. So I wouldn't read anything into it in terms of political. I will be doing this
13:00term limits thing until we get it done.
13:03Jeremy?
13:03Mr. Speaker, do you favor legalizing high lottery, an online booker?
13:07We're just going to talk about this. Ask me that tomorrow after rules if you'd like to,
13:13if that's okay.
13:13Governor, do you expect to actually get to 34 states on that?
13:19So I think that if we build the momentum, I do think Congress will act. Now I'm fine
13:28taking it through to 34, but the reality is I know how these guys operate, right? And so what
13:33they would do, so say you have the amendment, three terms in the House, two terms in the Senate.
13:37So that's 18 years someone could serve. That's a long time, big portion of someone's life.
13:41Say that's getting momentum. I think what they would do is see the writing on the wall.
13:46They'd probably do something similar, but they'd probably grandfather themselves in. So if someone
13:51had been in for 20, it wouldn't attach until the new representative gets elected. So there's a lot
13:57of permutations where they could take it, do something that would still be positive, but maybe
14:02not quite as good. But then people like me would just say, well, a bird in the hand's worth two in
14:06the bush. I mean, the amendment process, if you do do an Article V convention, would take a lot of time.
14:13If we get a dozen states to come on board pretty quickly, that momentum's there, and you get into
14:19the mid-20s, and then all of a sudden Congress is going to notice, it would be easier if Congress
14:24just wrote it and passed it, because they can do two-thirds, and immediately that goes to the states,
14:28and then let the states decide. If you actually got to 34, then you'd have to have the states meet,
14:35they'd have to write it, and then they'd have to approve the proposal. Then you still have the states
14:40that would have to turn around and either vote yes or no on ratification. So practically speaking,
14:46if we could pressure Congress to do the right thing, that would be the easiest route to go
14:51to get it. And look, I'm confident 38 states would ratify term limits. There's some other things that
14:57I would be supportive of for changes that I recognize may have more of an uphill battle,
15:02but even in states like California, voters have embraced term limits when it's been put
15:08to them. So I feel very confident that it would get 38 states. I've not seen an issue that's
15:15pulled above 80% consistently literally for like three decades. I mean, it's incredible the amount
15:21of support you have for term limits.
15:23Kim, does Florida have term limits for state offices, and how would that compare to what
15:28we have in mind for the federal level?
15:30We do. So it's interesting. There was a voter-approved constitutional amendment in 1992
15:35that provided term limits of four terms in the state house, two-year terms, and two four-year terms
15:43in the state senate. So basically, you get 16 years between the two bodies, if that's what you wanted.
15:48That amendment also included similar term limits on the U.S. House and U.S. Senate,
15:54and other states were doing at the time. That got challenged in court and went up to the Supreme
15:58Court, and the Supreme Court in a five-to-four decision said that states could not term limit
16:04their federal representatives. That was a divided court. Justice Thomas wrote a very strong dissent.
16:09I'm not sure the court would come out the same way today as they did then, but I think that states
16:16should just be able to do this. I think if Ohio wants term limits for its U.S. Senate and U.S.
16:22House members, I do think that the voters of Ohio should be able to prove that as part of your
16:26constitution. And so I disagree with term limits v. Thornton. I think the court could reevaluate that
16:32under the appropriate circumstances. But what's happened in Florida is you get elected, you know
16:37you have four terms in the House. It's not, I mean, most people stay for four, not all. You stay,
16:43you have four terms. And then there's a speaker that's elected every two years. So you get one
16:48chance to be speaker for two years. Now I'm not saying that's how the Congress would have to do it.
16:52And there's pluses and minuses to how Florida does it. But what I've seen is when folks come in,
16:58by and large, they're thinking about not that the fact they're going to get reelected for another 10 or 20
17:03years because they know they're not. It's okay. How can I leave a mark, a positive, how can I make
17:08a positive difference for Florida? And I think the incentives have been better in Florida. I would
17:14put the productivity, certainly my first six years as governor, I put the productivity up against
17:18any state. I think it's been very, very strong. I'm not sure that that would have been the case
17:23if you didn't have term limits. I just don't know. But I can say here as governor, our model has worked
17:30and I think it's worked much better than what's happened in Washington.
17:33All right. We have two more. Danny.
17:34So Speaker, when I said Senator Hottier left office, he said that he disagrees with term limits,
17:44saying voters, he thinks voters support term limits with all this power, and we're going
17:48to return the power back to us. Well, none of this goes back there. The power goes to the
17:52bureaucrats. That's what he said. First of all, do you agree with that? Second of all, why wouldn't that
17:59happen at the federal level? Sure. So, yeah, and I've spoke many times about term limits here in Ohio
18:06and the structure of what we have in place. I think right now there are maybe five members of, at least
18:13on the Republican side in the House, who have more than ten years' experience in the legislature. And I do
18:20think that a non-informed legislature empowers bureaucrats. The issue becomes the ability of legislators to act
18:32independently of those bureaucrats. And that's the whole concern. We get this sort of, well, they cozy up to the
18:39bureaucracy, to the interest parties and the groups and things like that. And the analysis really is, and this is a
18:47little bit nuanced, but I think it's very fair, the farther away the government is from the people, the more
18:55important term limits are. And I think that, you know, if people go to Washington, most people, they go for trips
19:03and tourism, things like that. But they really don't go and have an ability to affect what's going on in
19:10Washington. And in Columbus, we see a lot of people, you know, most of us, I think just about
19:17everybody, goes home on Thursday. At least I come down Monday, get home on Thursday. We see our
19:23constituents on a regular basis wherever it is. When we go to church, when we're at the grocery store all
19:29time, somebody's there. And if you look at local governments, I think it's even more acute. We had a
19:36proposal a few years ago to have term limits for township trustees. And I try to explain to somebody,
19:44there's only so many people who get up at four o'clock in the morning to go plow the roads. And
19:50usually that's one of the township trustees, at least in rural Ohio. So Washington is in serious trouble.
19:58We have a $36 trillion debt, and people can't really get their mind around how much $36 trillion
20:05is. There's $120 trillion unfunded liability in the social security system. We started paying
20:13people who never went into the system. There are now more folks receiving money than paying
20:19in. And more importantly, there's no plan by anybody in Washington to solve that, at least
20:26none that people are talking about publicly. There's a lot of private meetings, and people
20:30are buying, we ought to all do this, and we're going to go out and say something, but we're
20:33going to get hammered for taking away whatever benefit that we're trying to do. So I have,
20:40you know, when Ronald Reagan did this in the 1980s for balanced budget amendment, Congress acted
20:47they passed the Graham-Rudman Act, and if you all remember, that resulted in a balanced budget
20:54for the federal government. It wasn't that long ago when the federal government only spent
20:58as much money as it had. Frankly, since September 11th, 2001, all of that's out the window.
21:05So I think what you're quoting from former Senator Hottinger, a lot of that is very valid, but it's
21:13not valid, in my estimation, in the current, at the federal government level. Okay?
21:18Well, just before, I mean, I'll take it, but I hear this stuff about congressional
21:24terms. People say, oh, well, then the lobbyists are going to run it. Then the staff is going
21:28to run it. Who do you think has been running it now? When they do these omnibus bills, do you think
21:33that's something that all 435 of these House members are actively debating? Of course not.
21:39They are locked in a room with a cadre of staffers, maybe a handful of members.
21:44They produce some monstrosity. It's almost like, you know, the white smoke at the Vatican.
21:49All of a sudden, an omnibus. We have one. And then they publish it, and then these guys vote
21:54on it like six hours later. 1,200 pages, 1,500 pages, 2,500 pages. So all of that is done by
22:02staff. Many of these folks have been there a long time. That's now without term limits.
22:09And then obviously, I don't think anyone is going to act like lobbyists are not a major part of the
22:16process up there. So I think if you have term limits, I think there would be an incentive to
22:20maybe clean house with some people that have been there for a long time. There's always a balance.
22:25I mean, you want some institutional memory, and I think that that's good. But you also want people
22:30that bring fresh thinking and are not just going to say, we've always done it this way. But clearly,
22:35you talk about empowering the executive branch. We have a massive, unaccountable fourth branch of
22:41government with our federal bureaucracy. The president's trying to exercise and reassert article 2
22:46authority over that. I think he's right to do it. Obviously, there's a lot of issues that the courts are
22:51trying to get involved with to try to stop that. But the reality is, the bureaucracy has grown more
22:58powerful and less accountable over these many decades without term limits. And in fact, these
23:04members of Congress, they're more likely to get reelected if they punt more issues to the bureaucracy,
23:10because they don't want to have to go on the record on some of these things. They can punt it to the
23:14agencies, and then just say, hey, you know, the agency's going to make the decisions. And so that's
23:19what's happened now under the current iteration. So I agree, you don't want staff running it. I agree,
23:26you don't want lobbyists running it. And I agree, you don't want a massive fourth branch of government.
23:31But that's exactly what we have under the current system.
23:35So Florida is exactly that. And actually, it got even worse because our Supreme Court just issued a
23:58decision. We had a member of the State House who had previously been termed out of the Senate. So she
24:07served two four-year terms in the Senate, was termed out, ran for House after that, got elected. Then
24:15the Senator resigned a couple of months after the election. So then she went and she got elected. You
24:22know, there was this litigation about whether she should be on the ballot. The Supreme Court said that she
24:27could be on the ballot. So it's even worse. You can do eight years in the Florida Senate, have a
24:33placeholder win, they can resign, and then you can run. So you're basically doing consecutive years. And
24:39that's what our Constitution says. So I think it was a bad decision. But I think that the way it was
24:44drafted initially back in the early 90s, it's susceptible to that type of interpretation. I believe that the
24:52article five proposal from U.S. term limits would likely be, you know, similar to like the presidential term
24:59limit. Like you can get elected X number of times, and then that's it. I don't think you'd see ping ponging back.
25:05But that is what we have in Florida. And the members that have done that, short of this more recent example, are
25:12allowed to do it.
25:23Yeah, we can be helpful, let us know, because it's important.