Term Limits: Lifetime or Consecutive?

by Philip Blumel

Today I received a question in the mailbag from a term limits supporter.

“Does a three-term limit mean three terms total, or three consecutive terms? Can a legislator come back after sitting out a term?”

U.S. Term Limits supports both consecutive and lifetime term limits, as long as those term limits are short enough to restore competitive elections and rotation in office. For the U.S. Congress, we embrace the public consensus of term limits as three terms in the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate. Hence, our self-limiting pledges were intended to hold politicians to a set number of consecutive terms in office. However, U.S. Term Limits no longer asks politicians to self-limit, but instead to pledge to support a 3/2 Constitutional amendment to limit terms on the entire Congress. See www.termlimits.com.

For a number of reasons, incumbent Congress members win reelection to their own seats well over 90% of the time. This chases away meaningful challengers – quite often all challengers — and deprives the voters of meaningful elections. This dysfunctional situation greatly reduces the ability of citizens to weigh in on who represents them, the chief way by which the current sentiments of voters can wind their way into the legislature. If a politician leaves office for a time and runs as a non-incumbent for another office or even the same office, we recognize that this politician has some advantages but also that his or her election is hardly automatic. Hence, we believe the consecutive limit serves its public purpose.

Philip Blumel, president
U.S. Term Limits