Term limits for
Congress are
(probably)
never, ever going to happen.
In other words,
proposing term
limits for Congress is a popular thing to say on the campaign trail.
But it's not such a
popular thing to advocate for once you're actually in Congress.
And of all the
reasons Trump's term-limit proposal won't happen, this is probably the most
salient:
Congress doesn't
want it.
Including Governor
Rick Scott!!!!!!
(1)- The Supreme
Court says passing term-limit laws is unconstitutional.
In 1995,
the Supreme Court decided in a 5 to 4 vote
that states or Congress can't just make a law limiting the number of terms
members of Congress can serve.
The decision
essentially wiped off the books term-limit laws that 23 states had for their
congressional delegations.
(The decision didn't affect term limits for state
legislatures, and there are 15 states that impose them.)
The court said that
for term limits to be constitutional, we'd have to amend the Constitution.
And actually,
changing the Constitution is exactly what Trump proposed Tuesday:
“If I'm elected
president I will push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on
all members of Congress.
They've been talking
about that for years,”
Trump said in a
speech in Colorado championing his new package of ethics reforms.
“Decades of failure in Washington and decades
of special interest dealing must and will come to an end.”
But there's a
problem with that idea, too.
And it's:
(2)- Constitutional
amendments are really, really, really hard to pass.
Presidential
candidates routinely call for constitutional amendments, but rarely with
success.
For one, changing
the Constitution requires one of the hardest things to do in politics. It
requires an agreement by a two-thirds supermajority of Congress and then to be
ratified by three-fourths of states, or 38 out of 50.
Only 27 proposals
out of countless ideas
in our country's 240-year history
have climbed that
steep hill.
This isn't the first
time Trump has proposed one this campaign cycle alone. Back when he and other
GOP presidential hopefuls floated the idea of changing the 14th Amendment to
eliminate birthright citizenship,
surrounding those 27
changes to our Constitution.
I found that the
United States is often only spurred to change it under extenuating
circumstances, such as political crises, war and death.
(3)- Many political
scientists think term limits are a bad idea.
There is evidence
that term limits create more competitive elections, said Josh Chafetz, a law
professor and congressional expert with Cornell University. But he said most
political scientists would agree that term limits don't make sense in a body
that deals with as many complex issues as Congress.
In fact,
paradoxically, term limits could increase the power of those who can stay
around the Hill for as long as they want: lobbyists.
“If members are
restricted to only serving a few terms,”
Molly Reynolds, a
congressional expert with the Brookings Institution told The Fix in an email,
“the logic goes,
they have neither the time nor the incentive to develop the relevant expertise
they need to be good at their jobs.
If members don’t have that expertise
themselves, they’re more likely to rely on outsiders, including lobbyists, to
replace that expertise.”
(4)-
Congress would
probably never agree to it
(and never has).
Trump
is right; imposing term limits on Congress isn't a new idea. Politicians —
especially those on the right — have been floating the idea for years as a way
to crack down on corruption.
The
thinking goes that once a lawmaker spends too much time in Washington, he or
she becomes part of Washington
and incapable of effectively serving people outside of it.
So
let's put a limit on how long they can be in Washington.
But
once those pro-term-limit lawmakers get into office, very, very few of them have actually
tried to put their words into action.
Back
in 1995,
when
the Supreme Court ruled term limits unconstitutional,
the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives voted on four versions of term limits.
But
three of those proposals
even
failed to get a bare majority.
There really hasn't been a major push for term
limits since.