Senators would be limited to two six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms. Although voters in the s supported sweeping term limit legislation that imposed limits on state and local officeholders, the congressional term limits movement stalled in when the Supreme Court ruled that federal limits require a constitutional amendment.
The result has been congressional term limit stagnation , with more than 90 percent of House incumbents being re-elected year after year and the reelection rate among Senators falling below 80 percent just three times since More than 60 percent of Republicans and Democrats support the adoption of federal term limits , recognizing that the Congressional Incumbents Club is a paradigm of careerism, combining power, stature and influence with lavish benefits : a high salary; unparalleled business connections; limited working days; spectacular working conditions; periodic taxpayer-funded fact-finding trips; a sizable staff that could include family and friends ; exceptional medical, dental and retirement benefits; weakened insider trading rules; taxpayer funded legal expenses; the ability to moonlight at other jobs; free flights back and forth to the lawmaker's home state; a family death gratuity; and free parking.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter. No wonder those elected to Congress make every effort to hold onto their jobs and special-interest groups spend lavishly to ensure that those they've elected continue to protect and enhance their special interests. These perks help to explain why public confidence in Congress remains near an all-time low — 12 percent according to a Gallup poll. The consensus that Congress is broken is so widely-held that if ever there was an issue that should command bipartisan support, it's congressional term limits.
Although the Heritage Foundation concluded in that "term limits are here to stay as an important issue on the American political landscape," it and the U. Term Limits lobby badly misunderstood the degree of self-interest and power of the Congressional Incumbents Club. Unless a Constitutional change movement originates with the states and mobilizes its way to Congress as previously suggested , term limits bills are doomed to gather dust on congressional bookshelves. Term limits have been a net benefit at the state and local levels.
They would bring new perspectives to Congress, encouraging those with fresh ideas to run for office perhaps to some degree offsetting the Supreme Court's holding that gerrymandering is constitutional.
Term limits also would diminish incentives for election-related spending that have proliferated in the careerist Congress especially following the Supreme Court's decision validating the solicitation and receipt of unlimited campaign contributions. Although there are strong arguments against term limits, a further significant benefit would be a counterbalancing of incumbent financial and media advantages, as well as the name recognition, media access and embedded political contributions that flow to incumbency.
Term Limits lobby badly misunderstood the degree of self-interest and power of the Congressional Incumbents Club. Unless a constitutional change movement originates with the states and mobilizes its way to Congress term limits bills are doomed to gather dust on congressional bookshelves. Term limits have been a net benefit at the state and local levels.
Although there are strong arguments against term limits, a further significant benefit would be a counterbalancing of incumbent financial and media advantages, as well as the name recognition, media access and embedded political contributions that flow to incumbency. Term limits also would incentivize members of Congress to nurture their successors by providing the types of apprenticeship experiences that make for practical staff training in other industries, thereby taking legislation out of the hands of lobbyists, bureaucrats and unelected Beltway insiders.
Voter choices are restricted when a candidate is barred from being on the ballot. Severely decrease congressional capacity: Policymaking is a profession in and of itself. Our system tasks lawmakers with creating solutions to pressing societal problems, often with no simple answers and huge likelihoods for unintended consequences.
Crafting legislative proposals is a learned skill; as in other professions, experience matters. In fact, as expert analysis has shown with the recently passed Senate tax bill, policy crafted by even the most experienced of lawmakers is likely to have ambiguous provisions and loopholes that undermine the intended effects of the legislation. The public is not best served if inexperienced members are making policy choices with widespread, lasting effects. Being on the job allows members an opportunity to learn and navigate the labyrinth of rules, precedents and procedures unique to each chamber.
Term limits would result in large swaths of lawmakers forfeiting their hard-earned experience while simultaneously requiring that freshman members make up for the training and legislative acumen that was just forced out of the door.
Plus, even with term limits, freshman members would still likely defer to more experienced lawmakers—even those with just one or two terms of service—who are further along the congressional learning curve or who have amassed some level of institutional clout. Much as we see today, this deference would effectively consolidate power in members that have experience in the art of making laws.
Take, for example, the recent Sen. Durbin alliance that has recently proposed a bipartisan immigration compromise. Term limits would severely hamper the opportunity for these necessary relationships to develop. Strangers in a new environment are in a far worse position to readily trust and rely on their colleagues, particularly from across the aisle. We have seen a semblance of this effect after Republicans limited House committee chairs to six years at the helm.
In the th Congress alone, an alarming seven House Chairs have announced their retirements from Congress. Thus, term limits would impose a tremendous brain drain on the institution. Fewer experienced policymakers in Congress results in increased influence of special interests that are ready and willing to fill the issue-specific information voids.
Additionally, a decrease in the number of seasoned lawmakers would result in greater deference to the executive branch and its agencies that administer the laws on a daily basis, given their greater expertise and longer tenure.
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