Term Limits: Overview

Introduction

Term limits legally restrict the number of times an elected official may seek reelection. Many democratic governments impose term limits on various elected officials. However, in the United States, there were originally no term limits mandated for any federal positions, despite considerable debate on the issue during the drafting of the US Constitution. Only with the ratification of the Twenty-Second Amendment in 1951 were term limits officially imposed for the US presidency. Many states did set term limits for their legislatures or governors, and some municipalities have also set term limits for certain officials. However, most federal offices in the US have remained free of term limits, including both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The subject has continued to generate occasional controversy into the twenty-first century.

Supporters of term limits believe that rotating office-holders helps prevent government corruption and keeps elected officials in tune with—and accountable to—the electorate by forcing them to become private citizens after their terms end. It is also believed that term limits help prevent government officials from becoming loyal to lobbyists or to other special interest groups that could exercise undue influence over the political process. In addition, term limits might prevent incumbents from maintaining power through gerrymandering and financial advantages.

Opponents of terms limits believe that elections should decide when government officials leave office. They also argue that term limits can lead to incompetent government officials who are forced to learn on the job, thereby punishing experienced incumbents and the citizens who deserve efficient, effective government.

Over the decades support for term limits has come from both sides of the political aisle, with both conservatives and progressives putting their own spins on the belief that public officials should be private citizens rather than professional politicians more interested in maintaining their positions than in serving the people. In the early 1990s a wave of term limits were passed at the state level through ballot initiatives. Republican legislators attempted to pass an amendment to the US Constitution requiring term limits, but ultimately failed to garner enough votes for the measure. Increasing partisan political polarization in the early twenty-first century brought renewed attention to the issue of term limits at the federal level, including in bodies such as the US Supreme Court.

Understanding the Discussion

Ballot initiative: A proposed law that is placed on an election ballot and voted on by the entire electorate.

Gerrymandering: The manipulation of the geography of voting districts by the legislature in an attempt to give one political party an unfair advantage over another.

Incumbent: Term used to refer to the current holder of an office up for reelection.

Rotation: In politics, this term refers to politicians voluntarily limiting the number of terms they will serve.

History

Term limits have been part of the political fabric since the birth of representative democracy. In ancient Athens, Aristotle supported term limits both in order to limit government corruption, and to prevent the emergence of a permanent political class. He also argued that the periodic rotation of government officials allowed a greater number of citizens the chance to rule, producing a greater number of qualified politicians.

During the Renaissance, the states of Venice and Florence (in modern day Italy) also practiced a form of term limits. At the same time, prominent intellectuals such as James Harrington, Algernon Sydney and Henry Neville supported term limits in England, in order to avoid corruption and to prevent the birth of professional politicians who lacked any connection to the people. Other British thinkers, however, such as Matthew Wren and David Hume, feared that term limits would promote incompetent politicians who lacked the experience gained by holding multiple terms in office. Poet John Milton argued that partial rotation, which mixed old and new office-holders, was the best answer.

In North America, the Dutch at the New Amsterdam colony practiced rotation. After the Revolutionary War, new state governments, such as Pennsylvania's, wrote term limits into their constitutions. Many states limited the number of terms the governor could serve, fearing that the governor could appoint themselves as a monarch, thus reverting back to the colonial status quo. Pennsylvania's constitution mandated an entirely new legislature with each new term.

The United States' initial constitution, the Articles of Confederation, mandated term limits for congressional delegates. Revolutionaries such as Thomas Jefferson supported term limits to avoid government corruption. Jefferson also believed that term limits forced politicians to write good laws, because these politicians would soon return to private life, where they would have to live under the laws they wrote. Term limits became unpopular, however, after the signing of the Articles of Confederation, and some states refused to follow the term limits rule, sending popular delegates back to Congress even after the expiration of their term.

During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, argued against term limits. Hamilton believed that the Constitution's separation of powers prevented the emergence of a dictator or the concentration of too much power in the hands of only a few legislators. Anti-Federalists argued that term limits were necessary to prevent a monarchy. Although the Constitution did not limit the President's terms, George Washington set a precedent in 1796 by stepping down from office after two four-year terms. All subsequent presidents followed this precedent, until Franklin Delano Roosevelt's four-term presidency.

The debate over term limits in the United States subsided after Washington's presidency. During the nineteenth century many representatives and senators left office after two terms to return to private life. During Andrew Jackson's presidency voluntary rotation became a populist position, and supporters hoped that rotation would lead to a citizen-influenced government. At the state level, many state constitutions imposed term limits on the office of governor. After the Civil War voluntary rotation subsided. A new political class emerged with the increasing power of political parties, urban party bosses, and the political spoils system—which rewarded longevity in office.

After President Roosevelt died in office in 1945 after being elected to his fourth consecutive term, Republicans in Congress proposed the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, legally prohibiting the president from serving more than two terms, or ten years. The amendment was ratified in 1951. It was the first time term limits were written into the United States Constitution.

In the late 1980s some social conservatives began to support congressional term limits at the state and federal level. Many were worried about so-called "professional politicians"—incumbents who had held office for many terms and had become difficult to unseat. In 1990 referendums for term limits in state legislatures passed in California, Oklahoma and Colorado. In Colorado the referendum also placed term limits on the state's national congressional delegation. Ten more states imposed term limits as a result of state referendums in 1992. A total of twenty-one states imposed state-level legislative term limits through 2000.

Meanwhile, in 1994 Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, promising to pass a constitutional amendment instituting term limits for both the Senate and the House of Representatives. However, this measure never received the votes necessary to be passed to the states. Opponents of term limits gained another victory in 1995, when the US Supreme Court ruled that states could not pass term limits on their own congressional delegation, as Colorado had done, without a constitutional amendment.

Many Republican legislators elected in 1994 pledged to limit their term in office to six years in the House or twelve years in the Senate. Some kept to their pledges, but many others continued to run for office, arguing that the pledge was unfair because their opponents did not hold to the same ideal. In the absence of a constitutional amendment requiring term limits, few federal legislators proved willing to leave office until they lost their congressional seat in an election or retired altogether. The lack of congressional term limits was highlighted by several examples of legislators who held their seat for decades and ultimately died in office, including South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond (in office 1956–2003), West Virginia senator Robert Byrd (1959–2010), and Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye (1963–2012). Some states also repealed their state legislature term limits, whether by court ruling (Massachusetts, 1997; Washington, 1998; Oregon, 2002; Wyoming, 2004) or legislative action (Idaho, 2002; Utah, 2003).

Term Limits Today

After the wave of attention to term limits in the early 1990s, the issue largely fell from prominence. While the concept of term limits remained relatively popular among citizens according to many public polls, legislators at all levels of government tended to oppose them and few elected officials voluntarily rotated out of office. Opponents argued that term limits would give too much power to lobbyists and party officials, and that the complexity of serving in a legislature requires years of experience. They also maintained that elections are the best tool for limiting the number of terms served by legislators. By the start of the 2020s only fifteen states had term limits for state legislators, while thirty-six had limits for governors.

While not always considered a hot-button issue, term limits did continue to generate debate and political action, however. For example, in 2012 a number of states proposed amendments related to term limits. In California a law was passed reducing the term limit for the state legislature by two years, from fourteen to twelve, while the specific limits for each chamber were eliminated. That same year Arkansas likewise removed chamber limits while increasing its total state legislature term limit to sixteen years. North Dakota approved term limits for both its legislature and governor in 2022.

The heightened political partisanship of the late 2010s and early 2020s also drove some renewed attention to the issue of federal term limits. Supporters continued to argue that limits at the federal level would help reduce corruption and political gridlock while better serving the people by ensuring legislators could not focus on reelection above all else. The debate also extended beyond legislatures; perhaps most notably, a series of controversial Supreme Court appointments and decisions led to some vocal calls for term limits on Supreme Court justices. Critics of the lifetime tenure for justices argued that court appointments had become inescapably politicized and justices wielded outsized power for much longer than the framers of the Constitution expected due to lengthening life spans.

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