The Broken Promises Of An Aging Prom Queen

Kay Bailey Hutchison has broken her promise to Texans. Not only did she promise to adhere to term limits herself, but she co-sponsored legislation to create a constitutional amendment mandating term limits for senators and congressmen not once, but at least twice!
She promised, back in 1993 that she would only serve two terms if elected to the United States Senate from Texas. When the Republicans nominated a presidential candidate from Texas in 2000, though, her Vice Presidential hopes were canned for at least eight years, which is why I suspect she’s running for a third term. That, and the fact that she knew if she came home to take on Rick Perry in this year’s election, she’d have been slaughtered by the far-right in her party.

So, now, we’re left with a do-nothing, aging-prom-queen senator who has broken her promise.

What? You don’t remember Kay Bailey Hutchison making this promise? Well, thanks to Anna of Annatopia and a friend of hers with Lexus Nexus access, I’m pleased to be able to bring you Kay Bailey Hutchison’s broken promises.

First, she started saying this during her special election in 2003, when she handily defeated Democrat Bob Kreuger to fill the remainder of Lloyd Bentsen’s term.
Here’s an excerpt from The Dallas Morning News, May 22, 1993:

Ms. Hutchison said senators should be restricted to two six-year terms.

Mr. Krueger said he would voluntarily serve only two terms but would not support mandatory limits.
Ms. Hutchison said, “I believe our founding fathers were right in maintaining that we should have citizen legisla-tors, people who work for a living, who live with the taxes, who live with the mandates, who go to Washington and do service and come back to live with the laws that they passed.’

So, I guess now, Kay Bailey Hutchison doesn’t think she’s good enough to live in a nation burdened by some of the measures she’s helped pass? Read on…

Also during the special election in ‘93, we have this excerpt from Hotline’s January 14, 1993 issue:

Treas. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) and Rep. Jack Fields (R-08) “barn-stormed” across TX “preaching fiscal conservatism and declaring their candidacies” for the special election to replace Bentsen. Both made stops “in the state’s major media markets of Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.” Fields “pledged, and asked his opponents to do the same, to limit future government service to two terms.”
Hutchison agreed to sign such a pledge.

I’ll bet, if she actually signed it, she’s having big regrets.

Also, during the special election, here she is quoted in the April 15, 1993 Houston Chronicle, saying she will voluntarily limit herself to two terms:

Fields, Hutchison and Krueger said they will voluntarily limit themselves to two terms in the Senate. But Fisher, a Dallas financier who was an adviser to Ross Perot’s presidential campaign, said Fields was confusing “hypocrisy with democracy” in his term-limit pledge because he already has served 13 years in Congress.

Finally, here’s what she had to say after she secured her first full term in the November 9, 1994 Austin American Statesman:

Hutchison said her re-election was a mandate for her to return to Washington to fight for a balanced budget amendment, tax breaks for homemakers, fewer regulations for small business owners, a strong national defense, and term limitations.

“I’ve always said that I would serve no more than two full terms. This may be my last term or I could run for one more. But no more after that. I firmly believe in term limitations and I plan to adhere to that,” Hutchison said.

Remember that, in 1994, term limits were featured prominently in the Republicans’ Contract With America. They’d been gaining ground as a topic of importance for politicians throughout the 1990s prior to that.

It’s clear that KBH was swept up in the popular call for term limits at the time. But, that doesn’t mean it’s OK for her to go back on this promise. I for one oppose term limits, but I fully believe it’s time to impose some voter-inflicted term limits on KBH. A promise is a promise, right Senator?

In Wednesday’s USA Today, we find that this cycle is ripe with other Republicans who are going back on their term limit pledges as well. All the more reason KBH should have honored her promise.
And, while the federal government could constitutionally mandate term limits with a constitutional amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in US Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton in 1995 that states cannot impose term limits on federal officials. But, the voters can, and should impose term limits on Sen. Hutchison!

Perhaps the worst smoking gun for Hutchison, though, isn’t that she just said she’d limit herself, but that she co-sponsored legislation for term limits!

Back in 1995, she co-sponsored a term-limits constitutional amendment bill.
She did the same thing in 1997, when she she co-spoonsored a bill by then-Sen. John Ashcroft which would have created a constitutional amendment limiting the terms of senators and members of the U.S. House.

Clearly, if she can’t be held to her word, we don’t need her in Washington.

Tweet This Post   Ping This Post

Bookmark It