U.S. Term Limits Criticized As Too Rigid Organization That Helped Take Down Foley Now Using Deep Pockets To Target Nethercutt

(From For the Record, April 2, 1999): Incorrect group: Citizens for Congressional Reform, an early group working nationally on term limits for politicians, was started by Citizens for a Sound Economy. A story in Sunday’s Spokesman-Review incorrectly identified the group’s parent organization.

U.S. Term Limits, which is spending tens of thousands of dollars in a television ad blitz against Rep. George Nethercutt, is the nation’s main organization trying to restrict the time a politician can stay in office.

But critics inside and outside the movement say the Washington, D.C.-based group is too secretive about its sources of money and so rigid about term limits that the group is in danger of “eating our own.”

Nethercutt, who signed a pledge saying he would serve a maximum of three terms when he first ran in 1994, is considering running for a fourth term.

Last Friday, the group closed out two weeks of hard-hitting ads aimed at persuading Nethercutt to step down after three terms. It began passing out bumper stickers that say “Keep your word George,” announced a voter registration drive and released a poll it says shows the Spokane Republican in trouble with voters after its “token efforts.”

All of this has some local Nethercutt supporters asking, “Who is U.S. Term Limits?”

The answer: It’s the same group that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to pass or defend term limits initiatives in Washington and Idaho. Leaders of U.S. Term Limits also were part of a parallel organization that spent $325,000 against Nethercutt’s predecessor, then-Speaker Tom Foley, in 1994, after Foley challenged Washington state’s term limits in court.

Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits, said the concept of restricting the time a politician can serve is “an age-old idea” with broad public support.

While the concept has wide appeal, U.S. Term Limits is hardly a grass-roots organization, said John David Rausch, a West Texas A&M University assistant professor of political science who did his doctoral dissertation on term limits.

The group defines term limits as six years in the U.S. House and 12 years in the Senate. It has “hijacked” the movement to exclude anyone who doesn’t agree, Rausch said.

“They have these guerrilla tactics,” said Cleta Mitchell, a Washington, D.C., attorney who was once a member of the U.S. Term Limits board. “They come in, lob a few hand grenades and run back into the jungle.”

The roots of U.S. Term Limits are found in the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank advocating smaller government and fewer regulations, set up by wealthy people with ties to the Libertarian Party.

The board of U.S. Term Limits includes major donors to the Republican Party, such as cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, who gave more than $250,000 to help elect GOP candidates to Congress over the past six years.

The group’s campaign against Republican Nethercutt is being managed locally by a former aide to U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., and touted by a press spokesman who worked last year for GOP Senate candidate Chris Bailey.

Republican campaign strategist Brett Bader of Seattle wonders about the use of Republicans against Nethercutt.

“Are we eating our own? Absolutely. Many Republicans support the idea of term limits,” Bader said.

Nethercutt, Bader and others note, is a strong supporter and co-sponsor of constitutional amendments for term limits.

Jacob has been active in Northwest term-limits battles since 1991. He worked first for the U.S. Term Limits predecessor, Citizens for Congressional Reform, which gave $350,000 to an unsuccessful term-limits initiative campaign that year.

Last year, U.S. Term Limits spent $133,000 and provided another $124,000 in “in-kind” contributions to help pass an initiative preserving local term limits in Idaho.

Jacob has become the nation’s most visible proponent of term limits.

“He’s been in Washington, D.C., longer than George Nethercutt,” said Mitchell, the former U.S. Term Limits board member who disagrees with Jacob’s tactics.

Jacob is a former Libertarian campaign volunteer who spent two years in hiding in the early 1980s after he refused to register for the Selective Service. Arrested in 1984, he was convicted and spent five months in a federal prison.

He has no apologies for the campaign to force Nethercutt to stick with his pledge.

“I’m glad it’s tough on him personally,” Jacob said. “George Nethercutt was the poster child for the term-limits movement. We don’t want to see that example for good become an example for bad.”

But Connie Smith, co-chairwoman of the recently formed Eastern Washington Term Limits Coalition, said she doesn’t approve of the hard-hitting television ads sponsored by U.S. Term Limits, which liken Nethercutt comments on term limits to infamous statements by Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Smith worked for Nethercutt in 1994 but is disappointed he might break his pledge.

Nethercutt has said repeatedly he won’t be swayed by an outside group.

“It’s a question of what’s best for the district,” he said. “Do I unilaterally step aside, or let the people decide?”

He’ll decide this spring whether to seek re-election after talking with friends, supporters and voters. But he does have second thoughts about signing that pledge in 1994: “You go through life sometimes wishing you hadn’t said some things.”

Jacob said that if enough members of Congress sign the term-limits pledge, they’ll have more reason to pass a constitutional amendment on term limits, which the U.S. Supreme Court says is the only way the change can be made.

Mitchell, an attorney who has worked on term limits for a decade, said Jacob’s group is too rigid at setting the limit for House service at six years.

“There’s nothing magical about six years,” she said.

Sherry Bockwinkel, who led the term-limits initiative battles in Washington state in 1991 and 1992, now sees no reason why Nethercutt should quit next year.

Bockwinkel said she believes the time for term limits has passed. “Maybe we need to look at another route, such as controlling (politicians’) salaries, to get more turnover in office.”

U.S. Term Limits pays for “issue ads” to tell voters if a candidate does or does not sign a pledge. This year, it plans to target incumbents like Nethercutt who are thinking of running for re-election beyond the time in the pledge.

Because the ads don’t say to vote for or against a candidate, the group does not have to reveal the sources of its money. Jacob said the group has “over 100,000 donors from around the country” but he won’t say how many give large sums of money.

“We don’t identify what people give or who our donors are,” he said.

The reason, Jacob said, is donors who own businesses are fearful of retaliation from powerful members of Congress who oppose term limits. Concentrating on who gives the money to the movement is a “smoke screen,” he said. Term-limits donors aren’t like some contributors to congressional candidates who want a favor or a special policy, he said.

“There’s no special favor we can bestow on anybody,” he said.

But U.S. Term Limits was started by people who regularly lobby Congress for more favorable laws and contribute large sums to candidates.

The Cato Institute, Rausch said, was set up by Kansas billionaires Charles and David Koch. The Cato Institute started Citizens for Congressional Reform in 1990, then sold the organization to Howard Rich, a member of the Cato Institute board in 1991. Rich changed the name to U.S. Term Limits.

Rich and Jacob had worked on the 1980 Libertarian presidential campaign, which had David Koch as its vice presidential candidate. Rich hired Jacob as U.S. Term Limits executive director.

Some current and former board members of U.S. Term Limits have contributed thousands of dollars to Northwest initiative campaigns.

Bockwinkel recently recalled how she appealed to Rich for funds during the 1992 initiative campaign. She was leery of taking money directly from the group, because in 1991, huge sums from Citizens for Congressional Reform had set off a firestorm of criticism and helped defeat that ballot measure.

Instead, she asked Rich to find private contributions. When he finally agreed, money flowed freely into the campaign.

“It was like Christmas - $5,000 checks would arrive by express mail,” she said.

Thirty such checks arrived in the closing weeks of the campaign. The initiative passed.

Some of those checks came from U.S. Term Limits board members or leaders, such as Eric O’Keefe.

The treasurer and a former board member of U.S. Term Limits, O’Keefe also worked on the 1980 Libertarian campaign. He and Rich once operated a political consulting firm, Public Action Inc. In 1994, O’Keefe set up Americans for Limited Terms, which spent $325,000 against Foley in the race with Nethercutt.

Jacob said U.S. Term Limits has people who are members of the Libertarian, Republican, Democratic and Reform parties, as well as independents. Trying to tie the group to the any one party, he said, is “just another smoke screen to stick a label on someone and try to defeat their idea.”