After all, 15 states already term-limit their legislators. Any amendment would have to be approved by three-fourths of the states, but that isn’t as high a barrier as it might seem. The latter is true, of course, but matters naught when it comes to an issue like term limits. In promoting his legislation, Cruz explained: “For too long, members of Congress have abused their power and ignored the will of the American people.” Term limits, he argued, “offer a solution to the brokenness we see in Washington, D.C.” Rooney cited the “overwhelming” support of the American people. President Donald Trump has endorsed the idea, as has Beto O’Rourke, Cruz’s Democratic opponent last November. The measure has three Senate GOP co-sponsors. It would limit senators to two six-year terms and congressmen to three two-year terms. The Cruz-Rooney constitutional amendment is similar to one proposed by Cruz two years ago. The problem of politics turning into a permanent career is worse at the federal level, where legislating is highly professionalized and largely impervious to public influence, let alone control. Once-radical critics of the federal government essentially “go native” after serving a few terms in the nation’s capital. Members consistently vote for more spending the longer they stay in Congress. The impact could be even greater at the federal level. Growth rates ranged between 16 percent and 46 percent lower in states that imposed term limits. Perhaps the most significant evidence of the positive impact of term limits comes from Florida State University economists Randall Holcombe and Robert Gmeiner, who concluded that such restrictions in state legislatures slowed the growth of both spending and taxes. Preventing lifetime legislators at least creates a possibility of change. The argument that voters benefit from having more-experienced legislators is belied by the hash such legislators have made of everything from exploding deficits and uncontrolled entitlement outlays to unconstrained presidential war-making. Public-choice economics warns us that institutions have interests too, and long-serving legislators and staffers largely serve the institution to which they both belong. In practice, voters seem no better served by a 30-year legislator than by a 30-year staffer, since both tend to represent the political culture, influential interests, and the entrenched state more than anything approaching the public interest. The joke during the Cold War was that congressmen had higher reelection rates than members of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee.Ĭritics worry that legislative turnover just increases the power of congressional staffers, but having essentially permanent chairmen and ranking members leads to near-permanent staff too. Even in so-called wave elections, more than 80 percent of members are reelected. In contrast, today, even when polls show profound disillusionment with Congress, reelection rates typically top 90 percent and have gone as high as an astounding 98 percent. Some House members knew they had no chance of returning, so they retired.

Passage of unpopular legislation sometimes led to mass political slaughter, the ouster of a third or more of the House in one election, such as in 1854.

Running for the House of Representatives was once a blood sport. In effect, they do what elections once did, ensuring competition for power and rotation in office.

However, states could take up the battle again by challenging a misguided 1995 Supreme Court decision that protected legislators from accountability to their voters.Īmerica’s political problems run deep, and there is no panacea, but term limits offer at least a partial remedy.

The measure deserves to pass, but it won’t. Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Representative Francis Rooney (R., Fla.) hope to rejuvenate an old idea, proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress.

Congress term limits imeme