00:29:27.620constitution so the constitution provides
00:29:29.720that you have to be 25 years old to be
00:29:32.180elected to the house of representatives
00:29:33.560you have to be 30 years old to be elected
00:29:36.600to the senate and you have to be 35 years
00:29:38.920old to be elected president other than that
00:29:41.580there are currently no limits when it comes
00:29:43.660to to serving in federal elected office and
00:29:46.480it's one of the reasons why you see so many
00:29:48.640people in the senate who are 142 years old um i i have joked if you ever want to feel
00:29:54.880young come work in the u.s senate because the the median age is such that i have colleagues
00:30:01.360reminiscing about eisenhower i mean it's uh you know i feel like a sprightly young lad
00:30:07.360in the in the body in which i serve um term limits is something that that i emphatically support and and so uh i have repeatedly introduced in the senate a constitutional amendment to mandate term limits to limit senators each senator to two terms to limit each house member to three terms um you know it's interesting term limits was something i supported before i got to the senate but having seen this place firsthand now i support it
00:30:37.360a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times more because this place is the swamp it is corrupt and the people who are here a long time are the worst you get drawn in and corrupted by the swamp and it's both parties look the democrats are bad
00:30:50.080but for much of this spending that is bankrupting the country we have a uniparty we have republican career politicians who jump in bed with the democrats and eagerly spend trillions of dollars and and so term limits
00:31:05.080term limits would be a major step to reducing that power and reducing that corruption and it's an amazing thing if you look at term limits nationally over seventy percent of americans support term limits that's true among republicans among democrats and among independents you see massive majorities supporting term limits the one group that doesn't is career politicians in washington in the senate i have zero democrats who support my term limits amendment
00:31:35.060every one of the every one of every one of every one of every one of every one of the democrats is opposed to it and uh i've chaired i used to be chairman of the constitution subcommittee the senate judiciary committee i chaired a hearing on term limits brought in witnesses to talk about term limits and the reality is in the senate the young guys support my term limits amendments and none of the long time career politicians do
00:32:05.060because they oppose it because they oppose it because they oppose it that much so i've been fighting but i have not been able to get it on the floor because schumer and mcconnell control what gets on the floor
00:32:13.180let's get a question on this side over here howdy my name is chad i'm a sophomore in houston and i wanted to ask how congress can give back some 10th amendment rights to the state and people after events like 9-11 and covid have taken it away and given it to the federal government
00:32:29.060look that that is a fantastic question um if you look at the the bill of rights and you asked about
00:32:36.640the 10th amendment when i was in college i wrote my senior thesis on the ninth and 10th amendments to the
00:32:41.880constitution and i'll tell you a little bit of the history of why they're written and and and then i will
00:32:47.140get straight to your question but originally the constitution was written there was no bill of rights
00:32:52.140uh it was just the constitution itself and then there was a debate over whether to ratify the
00:32:57.120constitution and the two groups there were the federalists and the anti-federalists and the
00:33:01.540federalists were advocating the constitution's a good idea we should ratify it we should have it be
00:33:06.660the organic document forming our government the anti-federalists were arguing against it and one of
00:33:11.980the big arguments the anti-federalists had is they said well there's no bill of rights this is a flawed
00:33:17.320document because there's no no provision in it protecting our fundamental liberties now the
00:33:22.420federalists came back and they said no no no we don't need a bill of rights and the reason the
00:33:27.920federalists gave is they said this is a government of enumerated powers if you look at article one
00:33:33.560section eight of the constitution article one establishes the congress the legislative function
00:33:38.740and article one section eight specifies it enumerates 18 specific powers that congress has
00:33:46.420and the argument the federalists said is look we don't need to say that that the federal government
00:33:53.260cannot violate your free speech cannot violate your religious liberty cannot violate your right to keep
00:33:58.600and bear arms because there's nothing in the enumerated powers that gives the federal government
00:34:03.940the power to violate those rights and so we've already done that by limiting the federal government's
00:34:09.600authority initially now the anti-federalists came back and they had lots of arguments one of which was
00:34:16.420well there's nothing to stop them from violating those rights within the enumerated powers so for
00:34:22.840example one of the enumerated powers is the power uh to create and maintain post offices under the
00:34:29.520original constitution without a bill of rights a government could say the biden administration will
00:34:34.680say we will only transport letters from democrats all republicans we've decided we don't want
00:34:42.080republicans speaking anymore so we won't transfer their we won't transport their letters now if the
00:34:48.600government tried to do that today that would obviously be an unconstitutional violation of free speech
00:34:53.660without a bill of rights it would be permissible i think the anti-federalists won that debate
00:34:59.160so we now have a bill of rights the first 10 amendments to the constitution are the bill of rights
00:35:04.840and the first eight are protecting specific rights and then amendments 9 and 10 both say amendment 9 says
00:35:19.060the enumeration of certain rights in the bill of rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage
00:35:24.740other rights retained by the people the 10th amendment says the powers not given to the federal government
00:35:31.040uh are reserved to the states and to the people basically the the ninth and 10th amendments restate
00:35:39.960that the constitution is a constitution of of enumerated powers in other words they say
00:35:45.040even though we just listed these eight bill of rights we agree that the federal government probably
00:35:49.800couldn't have done any of this anyway but we want belt and suspenders and so the question i think the
00:35:56.400tenth amendment solves an enormous number of problems in our country i think federalism having states
00:36:02.440decide um and i i would actually advise you to take a look at a center at the texas public policy
00:36:08.860foundation it's called the center for tenth amendment studies i i started it i was the first uh director
00:36:15.440the first leader of the center for tenth amendment studies at tppf and and and it's continued it is
00:36:21.580ongoing i agree that a vast we should put as much decision making as much authority as possible
00:36:29.220at the state level or even better at the local level because it's more likely to meet the needs
00:36:35.460of the people that are being affected and it's also more accountable you the citizen are much more
00:36:41.240able to express your views and hold accountable local officials and state officials than some
00:36:47.680bureaucrat in a windowless office in washington dc let's get a couple more questions in here on
00:36:53.160this side go ahead uh hello senator cruz my name is mary mullivide i am 18 and from magnolia texas um
00:37:01.400it appears that democrats have control of the elections illegally through mules and in counting ballots
00:37:11.060how is our vote even going to matter is there a plate a plan in place for actually having our votes
00:37:19.560count well mary thank you for that question it's a hugely important question um you are right that
00:37:26.780voter fraud is a real problem it is a persistent problem uh it's a problem that that has been around
00:37:33.220since since the dawn of time since the very first elections i'm convinced that when the caveman sat got
00:37:39.380together to vote on who was going to be grand poobah somebody stuffed the ballot box that's that's
00:37:44.840just human nature that that we have crooks and crooks try to steal things um so we need to fight
00:37:51.720against voter fraud we need to fight to preserve voter integrity now the good news is we're in texas
00:37:59.220and texas the texas legislature has passed legislation strong legislation designed to prevent voter fraud
00:38:07.700it's not perfect it still exists but we have tools in place to prevent voter fraud there are things
00:38:13.840like requiring photo id which we do in texas that reduces fraud there are things like prohibiting
00:38:20.480ballot harvesting prohibiting paid political operatives from handling someone else's ballot
00:38:25.680that reduces voter fraud significantly ballot harvesting invites voter fraud things like limiting
00:38:32.780mail-in ballots in texas we do so only in limited circumstances typically seniors or people with
00:38:38.780significant disabilities but for the vast majority of texans the way you vote is you go vote in person
00:38:44.220we have a two-week period of early voting so it's actually pretty easy to vote but you vote in person
00:38:49.380in-person voting reduces the chances of voter fraud i think we need to be vigilant fighting against voter
00:38:56.800fraud i've spent 20 plus years fighting against voter fraud fraud at the same time if you look
00:39:03.700nationally they're blue states they're purple states that they're not going to pass legislation
00:39:08.680to protect election integrity because the democrats have decided they support voter fraud it helps them
00:39:15.020and it's a way the world's changed 10 years ago there were democrats who would work with you on
00:39:20.820something like photo id there are none today because they've decided voter fraud is good for them
00:39:26.380in blue states and purple states they're not going to change their laws to stop voter fraud here's the
00:39:32.860good news historically voter fraud typically only matters at the margins it matters in a close election
00:39:40.320so the answer is in those blue states and purple states we got to win by a big enough margin they can't
00:39:47.400steal the race from us now that's not fair it's frustrating but the alternative is give up on our country
00:39:54.900and i got to tell you there are a lot of democrats and a lot of people in the corporate media
00:39:58.240that want all of us to give up on our country they want conservatives to say well
00:40:03.700voter fraud is still there so i'm not going to vote to hell with it and i'll tell you what if we do that
00:40:10.180that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy then our country truly is lost and i'll point as as a moment
00:40:18.780of encouragement look no further than the state of virginia virginia went for joe biden by 10 points
00:40:27.380virginia has been blue for the past decade biden won virginia by 10 points one year later in 2021
00:40:34.600glenn youngkin who's a good friend of mine i campaigned with glenn youngkin all over virginia
00:40:39.680spent two days barnstorming the state of virginia with glenn one year after biden was elected glenn youngkin
00:40:46.800was elected as a republican in virginia now virginia had not changed a single voter integrity law they
00:40:52.680had the same lousy election laws they had the year before but a whole bunch of moms moms who had voted
00:41:00.560for joe biden got ticked off at what the schools were doing to our kids and they flipped over and
00:41:06.460voted republican that gives us a roadmap to what we can and i think what we have to do in this next election
00:41:12.940senator it's uh it's always a pleasure to see people in person i love doing these uh verdict
00:41:20.760lies for that don't forget we do this show three days a week monday wednesday fridays we have our best
00:41:26.820of recap on saturdays make sure you subscribe in those days in between download my podcast the ben
00:41:33.360ferguson podcast as well i'll keep you updated on the biggest news i want to give a big thank you
00:41:38.700to all of you that are here senator i know it's a pleasure i know you wish you're here not being
00:41:43.720held hostage in dc but give senator cruz a big round of applause
00:41:46.620you guys are awesome and hopefully next year we'll be back in person here thank you guys so much god