Philip Blumel: Battleground state voters demand term limits. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the term limits movement. This is episode number 292, published on October 12th, 2026.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: A new study looking at voters in battleground states makes it very clear that there is a list of policies with overwhelming bipartisan public support. And of course, term limits are at the top of that list, and candidates are responding in this election cycle. The title of the study is Common Ground in the Battlegrounds. It’s published by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation. The authors asked nearly 20,000 Americans in competitive states and districts about their views on reforms to the rules that shape federal elections and government. The major findings are that there are majorities of both Democrats and Republicans in nearly all the battlegrounds surveyed. They favor proposals to one, enact term limits on Congress, require redistricting in all states be done by independent citizen commissions, overturn the Citizens United decision, ban stock trading in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and require the Supreme Court of the United States to abide by the same code of ethics as other federal judges. You can find the details at www.vop.org. And with the midterm elections a month away, this is crucial info for candidates in competitive races looking for every advantage. And don’t think they don’t know it.
S?: Politicians get rich in office. That’s why Young Kim banned members of Congress from trading stocks, supports term limits for the fat cats in Washington. Stop the corruption. Vote Young Kim.
Young Kim: I’m Young Kim. I approve this message.
Philip Blumel: U.S. Representative Young Kim is a Republican running for reelection in California. But this is hardly a Republican phenomenon. Here’s an ad by Texas U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico, a Democrat running in a tight race to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.
James Talarico: Billionaires are spending millions attacking me. Here’s why. I don’t take corporate PAC money. I’m running to ban dark money so billionaires can’t buy our elections, ban members of Congress from trading stocks and enriching themselves, ban gerrymandering in every state, and establish term limits so we can show career politicians the door. I’m James Talarico and I approve this message because if the billionaires are coming after us, we must be doing something right.
Philip Blumel: The progressive MS NOW has noticed this trend. On October 8th, Kevin Frey ran a story reporting that, “Across the country, Democrats running to flip some of the nation’s most high-profile House seats this cycle are offering a similar pitch: Vote for me to clean up corruption in Washington. While the specifics may vary, candidate after candidate is offering their own plans to rein in malfeasance. Most hit on similar themes: ban stock trading by members of Congress, bar corporate dollars in politics, impose term limits, even on the Supreme Court, and restrict members of Congress from becoming lobbyists. It’s part of a larger trend this cycle with Democrats making corruption a central tenet of their ads and campaign messaging.” Yes, indeed, we noticed too. Here’s another. This is Sarah Trone Garriott of Iowa running for the U.S. Congress.
Sarah Trone Garriott: In Scripture, it’s taught to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Well, Congress could stand to hear a verse or two. I’m Sarah Trone Garriott. As a Lutheran minister and a state senator, I make listening a priority. And what I hear is people are hurting and Washington isn’t helping. That costs us. That’s why I say it’s time to pass term limits, require town halls, and ban politicians from trading stocks. That’s a message I definitely approve, and I hope you do too.
Philip Blumel: And here’s U.S. representative Maggie Goodlander at a campaign event.
Maggie Goodlander: We need age limits, we need term limits, we need cognitive testing and we need a ban. And that is for real.
Maggie Goodlander: We really do. My God, Mitch McConnell, it’s not just him, unfortunately, but we need a ban on trading stocks, on participating in prediction markets, on crypto trades. This is a government that we’ve got to clean up. And the way to clean up the government is with people of good faith who’ve got the energy, who’ve got the youth to actually be able to get it done. So that is what this room is showing me tonight. Today, I just wanna tell you in this job the best ideas I get come from you directly. And the most powerful advocates in this job have been young people.
Philip Blumel: I could play a dozen more of these from both Democrats and Republicans. Notice the similarity of their messaging? Aaron Duquette of the USTL team has been collecting these. These ads are more signs of progress. 150 or so pledged members of Congress supporting a constitutional amendment and 14 states applying for the term limits convention as pressure on Congress to pass it. It’s clear the term limits movement is on the march. Next Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, age 93, third in line to the presidency, has filed the necessary paperwork with the SEC to run for re-election in 2028. If re-elected, he would be 101 years old at the end of his 9th six year term. I don’t even know what to say about this. Let’s move on. Next, Francis Rooney has joined the board of U.S. Term Limits. This gentleman has been a successful businessman and has a long resume of public service, including serving as the US Ambassador to the Vatican, most notably for our purposes. While serving in Congress in Florida, he introduced HJR Resolution 20 in the 116th Congress, proposing a constitutional amendment limiting House members to six years and senators to 12 years. Welcome aboard, Ambassador Rooney. Next, the California legislature is adding an exclamation point to the end of the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment.
Philip Blumel: A new law requires a representative of each qualified political party and of independent or right in presidential candidates to certify to the Secretary of State under penalty of perjury that their nominees for president and vice president are qualified to be elected president under the 22nd Amendment, which bars anyone from being elected president more than twice. If the certification is not filed by the deadline, the nominees names cannot be placed on the California ballot. This was a response to President Trump’s trolling about running for an illegal third term. Of course, now maybe this bill can be seen as a bit of trolling as well. No matter. The 22nd Amendment is a bulwark against tyranny, and any recognition of that is a welcome act. Eight is enough. The Constitution says so, and California agrees. Next, which party would benefit more from congressional term limits? Democrats or Republicans? It’s an important question. It’ll take both parties to enact term limits. Of course, if one party will receive more benefit than the other, well, you could see the political problem that would cause. The answer might be a deal killer. Except that it isn’t. In a June 5th, 2026 column in the Kansas Reflector titled Enacting Term Limits Could Stifle Growing Congressional Tenures, Eric Thomas collected the data and offers an answer to the question. Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the University of Kansas.
Philip Blumel: He built a historical data set of every U.S. senate tenure. He drew it from Ballotpedia and ran the numbers. His conclusion is clear. There does not appear to be any meaningful partisan advantage. And here’s the data that supports his finding. Across the full history of the Senate and more than 2,000 tenures, Democrats averaged 9.17 years in office and Republicans average 9.39 years. That is a difference of just 0.22 years. That’s less than 3%. Thomas notes that when you sort the political parties by average tenure, Democrats and Republicans sit right next to each other. He calls the parity astounding, given the hundreds of senators and the countless individual circumstances involved. Even if you’re only looking at the modern era after 1959, when all 50 states were represented and average tenures had lengthened, the gap remains modest. Democrats average 13.29 years, Republicans average 11.95 years. The difference is about 1.3 years. Thomas observes that whether anyone sees a partisan edge in that gap probably says more about the observer than about the numbers. Thomas also points out that Kansas’s, of course, that’s where he’s from, Kansas’s longest-serving senator was Arthur Capper at 30 years, and the nation’s record is held by Robert Byrd’s 51 years.
Philip Blumel: Now, he’s not counting pre-Senate tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives. Four current senators have already exceeded 30 years. None of this tenure growth, Thomas finds, systematically favors one party over the other. He notes Pew’s finding that 87% of Americans support term limits, with strong majorities in both parties, the highest support amongst the policy questions that Pew asked about. Surely, he suggests, this makes bipartisan support possible. I was also pleased to find Thomas reported that Kansas is one of the 14 states to approve the application for an Article V convention limited to the subject of congressional term limits. It is the nonpartisan nature of term limits that will make it possible for Congress to avoid the convention by passing a congressional term limits amendment itself. After all, Congress has a bipartisan interest in not permitting state legislators to write the term limits amendment for them, obviously. And it turns out they don’t have a partisan interest against preventing that from happening either. Next, John Fund strikes again. In September, the political journalist and author offered yet another of his short essays in favor of rotation in office in the conservative National Review magazine and website. Permit me to read it in its entirety to finish off this episode.
Philip Blumel: Congress is a living advertisement for term limits, by John Fund. Twice this summer, an ambulance was sent to the home of a U.S. senator. Former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been recovering from a fall since June and is finally expected to return to the Senate this week. In 2024, as she was leaving office, it became known that Texas Representative Kay Granger, chairwoman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, had dementia and had lived in an assisted care facility for the last six months of her term. She passed away last month at the age of 83. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee, was another sad example of someone who shouldn’t have served as long as she did until her death at age 90 in 2023. Everyone now knows that the White House covered up President Joe Biden’s mental decline, starting perhaps as early as the day he was inaugurated in 2021. But it should also concern us that the average age of senators is 64 years. In the House, meant to be the people’s chamber, the average is 58. Members of Congress must disclose their financial interests and their stock trades, but nothing requires disclosures about their health or whether they can still do the job. Growing public concern about aged leaders who refuse to leave the stage in dignity is exacerbated by a Congress that, seemingly frozen in a bygone era, lacks the experience to tackle modern problems.
Philip Blumel: During recent hearings regarding the internet, for example, tech CEOs had to patiently explain to members of Congress how Wi-Fi works. The late Senator Orrin Hatch, who held office for 42 years, in 28 questioned how Facebook could exist as a business without charging its customers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s response: “We run ads.” The current composition of Congress has become the best argument for term limits. Wax statues such as the 86-year-old former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, South Carolina, can no longer be seen as models of statesmanship, and the infirmities on public display might only be the tip of the iceberg. As I’ve noted before, the owner of Grubb’s Pharmacy in Washington, D.C., disclosed in 2017 that he regularly sends medication for various forms of dementia to Capitol Hill and has a contract with the congressional office of the attending physician. The widespread concern with having too many geriatric members of Congress is one reason that introducing term limits is a consistently popular reform idea. A poll fielded in April by PBS News and Marist found that 83% of respondents supported term limits, with majority support in all demographic groups.
Philip Blumel: An overwhelming 70% of Democrats are also pro-term limits. The same survey found that 80% of Americans also support an age cap on congressional candidates. Indeed, North Dakota voters passed a congressional age limit of 80 for their delegation. The issue also concerns high government positions beyond Congress. In 2024, Americans were almost given a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who were 80 and 81 at the time. At the Supreme Court, five out of the nine justices are past normal retirement age. There is a possible solution. In the 1990s, voters in 23 states successfully imposed term limits on their members of Congress. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled five to four that states cannot unilaterally impose such limits. But many recent court cases have shown that even longstanding precedents, especially those that prevailed by just a single vote, can be overturned. The obvious obstacle to term limits is the refusal of Congress to limit itself. But the same kind of opposition to change had once blocked the popular drive for the direct election of U.S. senators. Then, in 1913, Congress was forced to end the practice of having state legislatures select senators. The clinching argument: senators were grandfathered in, and none had to face voters before the end of their six-year term. It is extremely unhealthy for our republic to allow a popular idea such as congressional term limits to be held captive by members’ personal refusal to surrender power. It is time to put the country first.
Philip Blumel: Amen, John. Thank you, and to all of you listening.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify. It’s free.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The term limits convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the term limits movement. To check on the status of the term limits convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a take action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you’re watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the term limits convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to U.S. Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the U.S. Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate, termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at U.S. Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
S?: USTL.
