The Who, What, How, and When of Term Limits
Benefits of Term Limits
The Seniority System is Broken: Reelection Machine Focus
”Incumbent Advantage” represents a profound failure of accountability in Congress. Despite an average public approval rating of less than 20%, incumbents are reelected roughly 95% of the time.
This disconnect is fueled by financial disparity: congressional incumbents raise $10 for every $1 raised by challengers. Lawmakers spend 70% of their time fundraising rather than focusing on the legislative duties they were elected to perform.
Enter U.S. Term Limits
U.S. Term Limits, Inc. (USTL) is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group dedicated to enacting term limits for elected officials at all levels of government, with a primary focus on the U.S. Congress.
USTL was founded in the early 1990s with a mission to create a citizen legislature in Congress by implementing mandatory rotation in office. USTL quickly became the leader of a large grassroots movement, primarily using state ballot initiatives to enact term limits on members of Congress.
We successfully helped pass state-level laws imposing term limits on their respective delegations in 23 states. However, the U.S. Supreme Court nullified this effort and determined that term limits for Congress would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
How We Accomplish Our Mission
Our goal requires a constitutional amendment, which may be proposed in one of two ways: by a 2/3 vote in Congress, or by a convention called by 2/3 of state legislatures (34 states). Once proposed, the amendment must be ratified by 3/4 of the states (38 states). Historically, when the state-led movement nears its goal, Congress acts first to preempt the state proposal. We believe this amendment will put pressure on Congress to propose their own term limit amendment.
How to Add an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Step 1 Proposed by either:
Step 2 Ratified by either:
To this end, we are actively pursuing the proposal of a term limits constitutional amendment through two primary channels: Congress and state legislatures. In the U.S. Congress, we support Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJR1) and House Joint Resolution 12 (HJR12). At the state level, we shepherd resolutions in approximately 15 state legislatures focused on passing resolutions that call for a term limits amendment proposal convention in order to pressure Congress to pass SJR1 and HJR12.
