Why we don’t see term limits in congress

o n Tuesday, s enator d ianne Feinstein ( d - c A) announced that she would not be seeking re-election in 2024. This revelation should come as no surprise, as speculation about her departure from politics has been anticipated for some time now. s ome prominent c alifornia d emocrats even announced campaigns for s en. Feinstein’s seat before the announcement, such as representatives Katie Porter and Adam s chiff.

o ver the years, discussions about the oldest senator’s fitness for office mirrors the national debate over term limits for members of c ongress. In many ways, the media treats s en. Feinstein as an embodiment of the issue. c oncerns over her declining mental capacity, her tenure in the senate (over thirty years!), and speaking bluntly on when she should’ve retired are the same talking points employed when discussing term limits. s ome articles about s en. Feinstein discussed term limits themselves as a way to avoid future situations like the senator. As such, s en. Feinstein’s retirement allows us to consider the term limits debate one more time.

Although we don’t have term limits for members of c ongress, the debate over whether to have them has occurred throughout American history. e ven at the Founding, the framers argued over whether term limits should be included in the c onstitution itself. In Federalist 62, we find opposition to term limits. Their argument was that governing effectively requires elected officials to be in office long enough to acquire “a knowledge of the means by which” to be strong leaders. o ther framers reasoned that because representatives only served two-year terms, term limits aren’t necessary. If that failed, the electorate could force politicians into retirement by voting them out of office.

After the Founding, the debate over term limits didn’t rise to the national level again until President Franklin d elano roosevelt broke precedent and was elected to four terms as president. since then, various senators and representatives have advocated for term limits to no avail. We even see these efforts today. s enator Ted c ruz ( r-TX) recently submitted legislation to add congressional term limits to the c onstitution. Additionally, part of speaker Kevin mc c arthy’s ( r- c A) concessions to far-right republicans included a floor vote on term limits.

There’s also vast public support for the measure. According to a 2021 survey, 80% of voters are in favor of such a constitutional amendment, including 87% of republicans and 73% of d emocrats. There’s more agreement on term limits than abortion, gun control, health care, and more. o n an issue with such vast public and bipartisan support, we’d expect this to be one of the few pieces of legislation to pass with ease. The lack of success raises the question of why term limits haven’t been instituted.

research can point to three obstacles that have prevented the passage of term limits legislation. First, lack of substantial resources prevents adequate momentum to pass any proposal regarding term limits.

s cholars note that it’s often one or a few members of c ongress who advocate heavily for term limits. even then, it’s among a number of other congressional reforms that tend to take precedent. For instance, speaker mc c arthy also conceded a number of other reforms to the house’s governing rules, likely leaving term limits on the backburner. s en. c ruz’s bill was introduced less than a month ago, so we can’t expect much movement at this point. however, if it’s anything like his other term limits resolutions, it won’t get far. h is previous efforts, whether under a d emocratic or republican s enate, didn’t get past the committee stage. Although we’ve seen term limits be proposed throughout history, there simply aren’t enough elected officials supporting it to move it forward.

s econd, the political reality of c ongress imposing term limits on itself diminishes any hope of it actually happening. There is little reason to suspect that individuals who ordinarily act out of self-interest would willingly act against their personal benefit, especially the U. s c ongress. Ironically, the last time c ongress imposed term limits was when a president elected four times. At that point, c ongress wasn’t reflecting the will of the people at all by limiting the power of a popular president. now, when the public does support term limits, we see no movement because it affects members of c ongress. When we do see action on term limits, it’s often minimal and primarily done for press coverage, especially for congressional candidates who want to brand themselves as anti-establishment.

Third, the logistics behind an amendment on congressional term limits presents an enormous hurdle. The process of amending the c onstitution itself is already challenging, requiring either a two-thirds vote in both houses of c ongress or a convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Then, either three-fourths of the states or delegates at the convention must ratify the amendment. With the c onstitution only being ratified twenty-seven times in U. s history and polarization in c ongress at its highest in decades, we can see why this is extremely unlikely to happen. This also assumes that elected officials can agree on the exact number of terms a representative or senator may serve.

The lack of substantial momentum on congressional term limits reveals that the U. s c ongress is often unresponsive to public opinion. This is especially disappointing on an issue with such vast support in the American electorate. This points to a larger issue of how the legislative branch can be better structured to serve the people of this country, but that requires a much longer column.

Blake Ziegler is a senior at Notre Dame studying political science, philosophy and constitutional studies. He enjoys writing about Judaism, the good life, pressing political issues and more. Outside of The Observer, Blake serves as president of the Jewish Club and a teaching assistant for God and the Good Life. He can be reached at @NewsWithZig on Twitter or bziegler@nd.edu.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.