January 17, 2019
Contact: Scott Tillman
Email: stillman@termlimits.com
Phone: (321) 345-7455
West Virginia House of Delegates Files Bill to Term Limit Congress
Charleston, WV – Today, Delegate Jeffrey Pack (District 28) sponsored a resolution to add West Virginia to the growing list of states signing up to propose a congressional term limits amendment. HJR 14 cosponsors are listed as Steele, Foster, Campbell, J. Jeffries, Phillips, Worrell, Mandt, Toney, Linville and Higginbotham. It has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee and is expected to be voted on within the week.
Delegate Pack commented on the resolution saying, “Its time to drain the swamp of politicians who are out of touch with hard working West Virginians. The best way to do that is by establishing term limits on Congress.”
Legislative Director for U.S. Term Limits, Shanna Chamblee added, “Delegate Pack proved that he understands the importance of term limits and its impact on the health of our nation. U.S. Term Limits looks forward to working with Delegate Pack and at least twenty-seven members of the 2019 W.V. legislature who have committed to support the resolution.”
In a November 2018 poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, more than 83% of West Virginians rejected the career politician model and want to replace it with citizen leadership through an amendment to the Constitution to term limit Congress. According to the poll, support in W.V. is broad and intense across all political, geographic and demographic groups. The results indicate that 81% of those polled also want their state representative and state senator to vote in favor of an amendment proposing convention to implement term limits on members of Congress.
Under Article V of the United States Constitution, states have the power to call for a convention to discuss and propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution. If 34 state legislatures pass similar applications regarding an issue, a convention is called with the scope limited to proposing only amendments allowed under the resolution topic. Furthermore, none of the proposals are adopted or have any effect unless they are ratified by 38 states. This guarantees that only amendments with bipartisan support and within the limited scope will be added to the Constitution.
Once HJR14 passes, West Virginia will become the 13th state to pass a convention application that includes proposing an amendment for term limits on Congress.
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U.S. Term Limits is the largest and oldest term limits advocacy group in the country. We connect term limits supporters with their legislators and work to pass term limits on all elected officials, particularly on the U.S. Congress. Find out more at termlimits.org.