President Trump’s recent tweet that he had given a “bipartisan group of freshman lawmakers who feel very strongly in favor of Congressional term limits” his “full support and endorsement for their efforts” was not the first time the current occupant of the White House had backed this immensely popular idea. President Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama said in 2016, “I think term limits are a really useful thing.”
But beyond general agreement over the concept of term limits for Congress, is there a consensus over the details of how term limits would apply? At what level should the service of lawmakers be capped? Barack Obama may not be there yet, but one particular proposal has gained momentum: three terms in the House of Representatives and two terms in the Senate.
In late 2016, candidate Trump proposed “3 and 2” as his ideal version of the term-limit formula, but the concept has a much longer pedigree. National Taxpayers Union originally praised House Republicans for embracing term limits in the 1994 “Contract with America,” but joined many pro-taxpayer activists at the time in calling for more robust caps on service than the Contract’s 12 years in the House. A 1995 Luntz research poll indicated that among Americans who backed term limits, 82 percent preferred three terms – six years – for the House. As a March 1995 article in NTU’s newsletter Dollars & Sense explained:
"A 12-year limit would still discourage many good people from running for Congress because the seniority system limits the ability of junior members to become influential. With a six-year limit, many of the nation’s top leaders would run for the House because they could quickly gain major clout in Congress. A three-term limit also guarantees more competitive House elections because at least one in three districts will have open seats with no incumbent. Many of the best Representatives will decide to run for Senate or Governor, giving the voters more choices for these higher offices."
Are taxpayers better served by limitations in office for lawmakers? Data from NTU Foundation’s BillTally system, which provides data on sponsorship and costs of federal spending legislation from 1991-2014, can provide important clues. BillTally found that among self-professed fiscal conservatives in Congress, more recently-elected Members often tended to be more aggressive in supporting spending reductions. For example, in the 112th Congress, while all Republicans tend to support spending cuts, the average freshman House Republican sponsored legislation with 21 percent more reductions than the average returning GOP House Member.
Although other evaluations of federal and state legislatures draw a variety of conclusions, taxpayers overwhelmingly believe that politicians should not be far removed from the citizens who must foot the bill for their fiscal habits. As just the latest example, a January 2018 survey of 1,000 likely voters found that 82 percent supported a constitutional amendment for Congressional term limits, while just 9 percent opposed.
Former President Obama supported term limits – and Democrats do as well. Oregon Democrat Bryan Wright recently wrote, “if the president was serious in his call for term limits, this deeply popular idea might just be a springboard to resetting his relationship with the American people.” And in Deep Blue Maryland, Montgomery County voters last year adopted term limits for their County Council, leading the state’s Governor, Larry Hogan, to propose the same for the State Legislature.
The movement for Congressional term limits has instituted a drive for proposing a constitutional amendment through an Article V convention of the states. Any amendment drafted this way would, just like one originating in Congress, need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Though often pilloried and over-analyzed, term limits remain a politically resilient issue, and on the federal level, six years in the House and 12 in the Senate is still the math that adds up to accountability for most taxpayers who support the concept.