Soon it will be Halloween – a time for trick or treat. And then less than a week later it is November 5th – Election Day.
And that is when one of the biggest tricks is played on the American people – the idea that the races for the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate are competitive and every vote counts.
Before one vote has been cast 23 members of Congress were re-elected without opposition. In the House of Representatives only about 30 races are deemed competitive. In the Senate there are about 10 races that are considered competitive.
In 2022, one hundred percent of all Senate incumbents were re-elected. In United States House Races that number was ninety-eight percent. Once elected to Congress most incumbents never face a serious challenge.
That is because they have the built in advantages of name recognition and ability to raise enormous amounts of money from lobbyists and special interests. The result is that many members spend decades in Congress. This has been reflected in the ageing leadership we see in Congress. The current Congress is one of the oldest in American history.
While yes it has been this way for decades, we can fix this broken system.
How? By enacting term limits for Congress with House members serving three terms (6 years) and Senate members serving two terms (12 years).
While Presidents have been term limited since 1951 with the 22ndAmendment, Congress never has been. Harry Truman (who was President when the 22nd Amendment was passed and a proponent of term limits) saw the need for term limits for Congress saying, term limits would be “a cure for senility and seniority – both terrible legislative diseases.”
Polling shows that 87% of Americans regardless of political affiliation agree with Truman’s thinking and favor term limits according to a poll by Pew Research.
But Congress will never voluntarily term limit themselves. The House Judiciary Committee killed House Joint Resolution 11 sponsored by Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina with over 100 co-sponsors from both parties.
So, if they won’t do it, what can we in the Lone Star State do to advance term limits?
We can join a growing roster of states that are calling for a convention to adopt a congressional term limits amendment. When enough states request a convention to add a term limits amendment to the Constitution, Congress is bypassed, and the amendment can be proposed by the states for ratification.
Once passed, Texas will go on record calling for an amendment convention to discuss and, if agreed upon, adopt an amendment to set congressional term limits that would then need to be approved by threefourths of the states. With overwhelming support among voters, congressional term limits will become a reality. Congress will then be confronted with a dilemma: do the right thing and propose their own term limits or sit idly by and watch the states do it for them.
Let’s have Texas play the trick on career politicians and pass term limits!
Brandon Herrera is the Texas State Chair for U.S. Term Limits.
