John Deaton says he’d make term limits for Congress a day-one priority if he beats U.S. Senato Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge), who is seeking a third term.
“Term limits will be my very first bill I write as a United States Senator,” Deaton told NewBostonPost during an August 19 interview in Quincy, Massachusetts. “My position is this: If you can’t help bring change to the country in 12 years, it’s time for you to move over for someone who might have the skill-set to do it. Case in point: I believe Elizabeth Warren represents the epitome of what happens in Washington D.C., Thirteen years ago, she was outraged about the bankers, but no bankers went to prison from the 2008 financial crisis. She promised to go to D.C. and hold those bankers accountable. Those same bankers today write her bills for her. That’s what happens.”
Warren could not be reached for comment.
Deaton, 57, a Swansea resident, who won the Republican Party’s nomination in a three-way race on Tuesday, September 3.
Term limits are highly popular among Americans, with 87 percent backing it in some form, while just 12 percent oppose it, according to a September 2023 Pew Research poll. However, elected officials are less supportive of the idea.
As Deaton points out, Warren filed the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act; it’s a bill that would heavily regulate the cryptocurrency industry that critics say would put the industry out of business. U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), another supporter of the bill, has said the American Bankers Association helped craft the bill, according to Coin Telegraph.
Deaton also said that term limits could help prevent Americans from being represented by politicians with severe cognitive issues.
“Listen, you had Senator Dianne Feinstein who was 90 years old,” Deaton said of the late Democratic U.S. senator from California. “She had given power of attorney in her personal life to her daughter. They were wheeling her in and unelected people were whispering into her ears how to vote. She was 90 years old and had been there for decades. That’s what happens. Bernie Sanders at 83 years old is running again which would put him at 89 years old at the end of his next term. Career politicians are the problem in Washington. One way to fix that is to institute term limits.”
Feinstein did have an aide whisper into her ear before she voted on an $823 billion defense appropriations bill in committee in July 2023; Senate Appropriations Committee Patty Murray (D-Washington) also told Feinstein “just say aye,” before Feinstein voted aye — in favor of the bill, according to NBC News.
Feinstein died in office in September 2023 at age 90 and three months.
Deaton said Warren is also a prime example of why the country needs term limits.
He said she makes pie-in-the-sky promises to the American people that she can never follow through on and keeps running on those grandiose promises.
“Let’s use her as an example, in 12 years, as primary sponsor, she’s passed one bill,” Deaton said. “If you or I were to have that level of lack of productivity, we would be fired. We would be let go. So we’re asking voters to hold her to the same standard. It’s crazy how these politicians get up there and say ‘give me one more chance,’ even though they’ve been there for years and years. I think Warren is probably one of the best examples of people who go to D.C. and get nothing accomplished — other than pointing fingers.”
Warren’s challenger, Deaton, is a moderate Republican. He is socially liberal, supporting legal abortion, in-vitro fertilization, Massachusetts gun laws, and same-sex marriage.
Deaton clarified his support for legal abortion and for in vitro fertilization early in his campaign.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February 2024 that two parents could file a wrongful death civil lawsuit against an in-vitro fertilization clinic in which someone dropped and destroyed several of the couple’s unborn children, who were frozen embryos at the time.
On social media, Deaton condemned the Alabama Supreme Court for the in vitro fertilization decision and the United States Supreme Court for its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and restored to states’ authority to regulate abortion.
“Children are a blessing,” Deaton posted on X (Twitter) this past weekend. “Efforts to prevent couples from conceiving are unconscionable and cruel. This is health care and it’s about family. Just as they were wrong on Dobbs, out-of-control judges should not be deciding these things. Period.”
Warren is expected to win re-election this November; Cook Political Report puts the seat in its Solid D category.
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