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CONTACT: Scott Tillman, COO
U.S. Term Limits
Ph: (321) 345-7455
Email: press@termlimits.com
High Court Rules Unanimously That Lawmakers Brazenly Exceeded Authority in Attempt to Overrule the Will of the People
BISMARCK, ND — In a monumental victory for grassroots accountability and citizen-led democracy, the North Dakota Supreme Court has unanimously blocked a deceptive legislative attempt to gut the state’s voter-approved lawmaker term limits.
The high court’s decisive ruling orders the Secretary of State to completely remove “Constitutional Measure 1” (formerly Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008) from the upcoming November 2026 general election ballot, declaring the legislature’s actions void ab initio—void from the very beginning.
In the unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Lisa Fair McEvers, the Court dismantled the Legislative Assembly’s efforts to bypass the state constitution. The ruling permanently protects Article XV, the citizen-led initiative passed by North Dakota voters in 2022 that established a strict eight-year cumulative service limit per chamber. Crucially, the 2022 law included a safeguard explicitly stripping career politicians of the power to alter or repeal these term limits, reserving that right solely to the people via citizen-led initiative petitions.
U.S. Term Limits (USTL), the nation’s leading advocate for term limits, applauded the ruling as a massive triumph for the rule of law and a stern warning to self-serving politicians nationwide.
“This is a historic victory for the voters of North Dakota, who made their voices crystal clear in 2022,” said Philip Blumel, President of U.S. Term Limits. “The legislature’s arrogant attempt to claw back power and rewrite the rules for themselves was a blatant insult to the electorate. The Supreme Court saw right through their desperate, meritless legal arguments and rightfully declared that ‘notwithstanding’ means exactly what it says: politicians do not get to overrule the people.”
The legal battle was ignited after the Legislative Assembly passed S.C.R. 4008 during the 2025 session, trying to force a repeal of the voter-enacted safeguards. Former members of the original Term Limits Initiative sponsoring committee, Terence B. Bjerke and Leverett Oley Larsen, bravely filed a petition in January 2026 to stop the lawbreaking measure in its tracks.
The state legislature fiercely fought the petition using a laundry list of procedural excuses—claiming the issue wasn’t “ripe,” that citizens lacked standing, and even bizarrely arguing that restricting their ability to alter term limits violated the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court thoroughly rejected every single defense, ruling that because the legislature failed to follow mandatory constitutional steps, immediate judicial intervention was entirely justified.
By granting a formal writ of injunction against Secretary of State Michael Howe, the Court has ensured that North Dakota’s hard-won term limits remain fully intact, safe from the hands of the politicians they are designed to regulate.
“Politicians across the country are constantly looking for backdoors to extend their own careers at the taxpayers’ expense,” added Blumel. “North Dakota’s high court just drew a line in the sand. Let this be a lesson to politicians everywhere: the will of the people is absolute, and you are not above the Constitution.”
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About U.S. Term Limits
U.S. Term Limits (USTL) is the largest grassroots term limits advocacy group in the United States. We are a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to limiting the terms of elected officials especially of the United States Congress. For more information, visit termlimits.org.
