But there’s still a way to make them a reality.
But there’s still a way to make them a reality.
A lmost every day we get a new reminder that we are increasingly governed by elderly, out-of-touch professional politicians who have constructed an incumbent-protection moat around themselves and therefore can’t be dislodged by voters.
Maryland’s Senator Ben Cardin just announced he will leave office next year at the age of 81. He began his political career in the Maryland state legislature back in 1966, a full 56 years ago and before the first Moon landing. Both his father and uncle served in the state legislature. His uncle retired in 1966 to make way for the younger Cardin as his replacement, beginning in 1967.
The New York Times has called on Dianne Feinstein, California’s 89-year-old senator, to resign, noting that her being sidelined from Senate business since February because of shingles is holding up key votes in a closely divided body. Feinstein also began her political career in the 1960s, in San Francisco, and has increasingly been viewed as confused and forgetful by colleagues.
These examples and others demonstrate why polls consistently show that the public supports term limits for Congress similar to the ones already in place for the presidency and 37 state governors. In March, five out of six Americans in a poll conducted by the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy supported a constitutional amendment to impose term limits. The amendment was popular among every demographic group, with support from 86 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats, and 84 percent of independents.
While there has not been a vote on term limits in Congress since 1995, the issue was given new life during this year’s speakership negotiations when Speaker McCarthy indicated that the House may vote on the issue. But no one expects it to pass.
So how to accomplish it?
Term limits cannot be accomplished by statute. The Supreme Court has said it must come via a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress. But asking the professional politicians in Congress to vote for term limits is like asking chickens to deliver themselves to Colonel Sanders. It’s an issue that cuts naturally against their self-interest.
The answer can be summed up in one word: pressure. There is ample historical precedent that this has worked in the past to make popular ideas a reality despite entrenched opposition.
The vehicle that can be used is found in Article V of the Constitution, which allows for a state “convention for proposing Amendments” to the Constitution. If two-thirds of the states vote to term-limit Congress or to adopt other needed reforms, they don’t need congressional approval. This process, driven not by D.C. but by the states, was designed specifically to rein in abuses of power by members of the House and Senate.
State legislatures must pass the term-limits convention resolution not to get an actual convention but to prompt Congress into action.
But the idea of holding an amendment-proposing convention of the states remains a controversial one, even in conservative circles.
Supporters say it’s a useful tool to rein in abuses of power. But skeptics call it a risky enterprise, which might just run away, expand its scope, and rewrite the Constitution. This thinking has produced some strange bedfellows. Both the Eagle Forum of Phyllis Schlafly fame and the George Soros–funded Common Cause oppose the convention for the same reason: They don’t trust it to stick to its subject matter.
Both sides have debated the question for decades. But there is one issue where the question doesn’t need to be answered. That issue is congressional term limits. That’s because Congress will never allow a term-limits-only convention to take place.
Congress would know that delegates to a term-limits convention would consist mainly of state legislators, who would have every incentive to propose term limits without grandfathering current members of Congress: Such a change would create job openings for the state legislators. Rather than allow states to decide its fate, Congress would step in front of the convention effort by proposing its own term-limits amendment that protected current incumbents.
State legislators should therefore vote for a term-limits convention regardless of whether they believe a convention will run away. Even though the bill has “convention” in its title, the convention will never happen. But, functionally, it’s a tool that can be applied to pressure Congress into proposing term limits.
It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened in our history. The 22nd Amendment, which limits the president to two terms, was a congressional response to an effort by several states to hold an Article V convention. That amendment, like any future term-limits amendment, included grandfathering for the current officeholder, who at the time was Harry Truman.
Likewise, the 17th Amendment — which enshrined the direct election of senators — was proposed by Congress in response to states that wanted to pass the amendment via convention. Thirty-one states called for a convention to discuss direct election of senators, but that convention was never held because Congress preempted action by the states.
Michael McKenna, who was deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs for the Trump White House, has come to believe that term limits are essential.
“We need to do something to alter the electoral physics that provides too much advantage to those who are comfortable staying in one place and doing one thing until they drop dead,” he wrote in the Washington Times last week. “At a minimum, we need to start the conversation on how best to avoid the inevitable systemic sclerosis that results from having ‘representatives’ of the people who have not worked or lived among the people for decades.”
Term limits will never be popular with the politicians. But there are ways to get around that obstacle and make them a reality. The irony is that those elected officials who buck the system and support limits would probably find themselves rewarded by voters for their courage and independence.