Philip Blumel: Two wins in one day. Arizona and Kansas State Houses passed the term limits convention bill. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement published on February 9, 2026. This is episode number 279.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: What a way to start a new year. On February 4th, the Kansas State House passed the term limits convention resolution 78 to 42. Congrats to Representative Bill Sutton, the bill’s chief sponsor. Then later in the same day, the Arizona House stepped up and passed Representative Jeff Weninger’s term limits convention bill in a 33 to 24 vote. Now, the Georgia Senate has already passed the resolution in 2025, and since that state has a two-year legislative session, one half of the Georgia Legislature is already on board for 2026 as well. Of course, both houses of the legislature have to pass the resolution in order to officially apply for an amendment proposing convention limited to the subject of congressional term limits under Article Five of the Constitution.
Philip Blumel: Twelve states have already done so, including three last year. Which of these states, Kansas, Arizona, Georgia, will be number 13? But wait, wait, wait. Before you answer, those are not the only possibilities. U.S. term Limits is active in over a dozen states this year, and we have also seen early moves in Utah and New Hampshire as well. On January 23rd, the term limits convention resolution in Utah passed unanimously through the Utah Senate Government Operations Committee. Interestingly, this was a, not a bipartisan vote, a tripartisan vote, as this committee is manned by Republicans, Democrats, and even a Forward Party member. This committee win is an important first step in getting the term limits convention bill to a floor vote by the full Utah State Senate. Next, on September 6th, just a couple days after the House victories in Kansas and Arizona, the New Hampshire House State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee passed the term limits convention bill twelve to five.
Philip Blumel: Thanks to Representative Joe Alexander for his chief sponsorship in New Hampshire. Now, New Hampshire is a great prospect for advancing the congressional term limits cause. Recent polling shows congressional term limits support at 84%. Over 150 New Hampshire legislators have signed the U.S. term limits pledge of support for the measure. That there’s a lot of work to do to get these states to pass the finish line, and you can help. If you live in any of the states I’ve mentioned, please, right now, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There, find your state and click on it. There you can send a message to the relevant legislators in your state, in your area, telling them to support the term limits convention resolution.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: In our PSA segment this episode, we focus on a highlight of the debate during the recent successful vote before the Utah Senate Government Operations Committee on January 23rd. In this clip, Utah Senator Michael McKell asks U.S. term limits regional director Constantin Querard where states get the right to propose amendments to the federal U.S. Constitution.
Michael McKell: Constantin, I don’t think I’ve had a chance to meet you, but oftentimes there’s opposition to this, and sometimes it goes back to the Constitution itself, and this is in the Constitution, and I’d like you to address the constitutional authority for this action today.
Constantin Querard: I appreciate that. Yeah, it is… Article Five is basically the part of the Constitution that explains how we amend the Constitution. At the original Constitutional Convention, they knew that what they had written was not going to be it forever, so they inserted Article Five as the mechanism. In the original draft of Article Five, basically said that two-thirds of Congress shall propose and three-quarters of the states shall ratify, and that’s how we get amendments. But the founders, before they left, they said, well, wait a second. What if Congress is the problem? Because their fear was that Congress would naturally start to accumulate power and that the states, who were supposed to be supreme, would need a way to push back. So the amendment or the Article Five was changed so that it was two-thirds of Congress or two-thirds of the states could propose and three-quarters of the states to ratify. So the states would have the power to act without Congress if they needed to.
Constantin Querard: Historically, what that’s meant is that the states have applied Article Five pressure to Congress to force Congress to act. So you have 27 amendments, but you’ve never had an amendment convention. And Congress obviously didn’t like all 27 amendments, so why did they do them? In fact, our Bill of Rights, those first 10, was pressure from the states because when they left the Constitutional Convention, there were a number of unresolved matters that, oh, we promise we’ll come back and we’ll take care of those things, and Congress wasn’t proposing them. So the states started passing calls, and they talk about Madison going through the calls, taking the 12 most popular, Congress proposed those, they ratified 10, and that became your Bill of Rights. So historically, this is the constitutional authority. This is the one mechanism the states have to force Congress to do those things that Congress otherwise would not do. Thank you.
Michael McKell: And just this one follow-up comment. I’ll say this when we vote on it and I’ll explain my vote, but you hit something that I entirely agree with. Congress is the problem, and I look forward to talking about it.
Philip Blumel: Next. We have a story that isn’t explicitly about term limits, but it suggests why they’re necessary. The subhead in The Economist magazine on January 3rd was, New research reveals the preferred career choice for cheats. Yes, cheats, cheaters. In a new working paper, John Liu of the University of Hong Kong and others used plagiarism in master’s theses to measure a level of dishonesty. The bottom line of their research was that those who plagiarized more, they found, were more likely to go on to work in the public sector. And once they were ensconced in their jobs, they were more likely to be promoted as well. Specifically, what they did was is, they reviewed some six million dissertations, this is all in China, and divided them up between civil servants and non-civil servants for comparison. The results suggested that popular cynicism about public officials is not misplaced. People entering the public sector had plagiarism scores 15.6% above the average. Interestingly, customs and tax officials were the worst, with 25% and 26% higher scores than their private sector peers. The authors then applied these numbers to actual professions and found some disquieting results.
Philip Blumel: They examined a database of 140 million court rulings, again in China, comparing plagiarizing judges versus their more honest peers. They found that cheaters were 10% more likely to rule in favor of the government over citizens in lawsuits and 15% likelier to rule with state-owned enterprises over private firms. Think about that. Okay, but is it really fair to suggest that someone who would plagiarize on their dissertation is really, more likely to cheat in other areas of life? That’s a fair question, and it’s one that the authors of the study thought of as well. So they invited 443 people as part of a job application to roll dice, rewarding them based on the outcome. Now, the rolls were unmonitored, and they found that people who cheated on their dissertations also reported improbably high dice rolls. Well, maybe this research only applies to Chinese people. Sure, but just in case, maybe we ought to protect the public by creating special limits on those who wield government power. Yes, let’s do that.
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Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The term limits convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the term limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a Take Action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to U.S. term limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the U.S. Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate, termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at US Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
