The Term Limits Movement

Popular support for term limits has been part of a broader discontent with the political process, a discontent which also found expression for example in Ross Perot's third-party bid for the White House in 1992. However, the term limits movement was also seized upon by Republican strategists who saw it as a means to break what they perceived as a Democratic lock on Congress, and particularly the House of Representatives. Thus, a federal term-limits law was one of the proposed measures offered in the House Republican "Contract with America" during the 1994 elections ("Signed, sealed and delivered," 1995, p. 11).

Ironically, the 1994 election gave the Republicans a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. This at once undermined both GOP enthusiasm for ter

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ved several terms in Congress or in the state legislature? This argument was indirectly the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling against Congressional term limits. The Constitution sets forth certain qualifications which members of Congress must meet, and the court held that states are not entitled to impose any further restrictions on who can be elected to Congress. The other fundamental criticism offered by critics of term limits is that the people already have at hand the means to limit the terms of any legislator: They can simply refuse to reelect that person in the next election. Incumbents indeed can be and are turned out of office when their constituents are no longer satisfied with their performance. The 1994 Congressional elections demonstrated that the whole political balance of Congress can be changed in an election, with no need for term limits to force incumbents out. Indeed, the high overall rate of reelection for incumbents may be misleading; incumbents who know they are unlikely to be reelected often choose to retire rather than face the embarrassment of a reelection defeat. The average length of service of a member of Congress during the past couple of decades has in fact been less than the 12 years p
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Approximate Word count = 1710
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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