Soon it will be Halloween — a time for trick or treat. And then less than a week later it is Nov. 5 — Election Day.
And that is when one of the biggest tricks is played on the American people — the idea that the races for the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate are competitive and every vote counts. Before one vote has been cast 23 members of Congress were re-elected without opposition. In the House only about 30 races are deemed competitive. In the Senate there are about 10 races that are considered competitive.
In 2022, 100% of all Senate incumbents were re-elected. In House races that number was 98%. Once elected to Congress most incumbents never face a serious challenge. That is because they have the built-in advantages of name recognition and ability to raise enormous amounts of money from lobbyists and special interests.
The result is that many members spend decades in Congress. This has been reflected in the aging leadership we see in Congress. The current Congress is one of the oldest in American history.
While, yes, it has been this way for decades, we can fix this broken system.
How? By enacting term limits for Congress with House members serving three terms (six years) and Senate members serving two terms (12 years).
While presidents have been term-limited since 1951 with the 21st Amendment, Congress never has been. Harry Truman (who was president when the 21st Amendment was passed and a proponent of term limits) saw the need for term limits for Congress, saying term limits would be “a cure for senility and seniority — both terrible legislative diseases.”
Polling shows that 87% of Americans regardless of political affiliation agree with Truman’s thinking and favor term limits, according to a poll by Pew Research.
But Congress will never voluntarily term-limit themselves. The House Judiciary Committee killed House Joint Resolution 11 sponsored by Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina with over 100 co-sponsors from both parties. So, if they won’t do it, what can we in the Keystone State do to advance term limits?
We can join a growing roster of states that are calling for a convention to adopt a congressional term-limits amendment. When enough states request a convention to add a term-limits amendment to the Constitution, Congress is bypassed, and the amendment can be proposed by the states for ratification.
Once passed, Pennsylvania will go on record calling for an amendment convention to discuss and, if agreed upon, adopt an amendment to set congressional term limits that would then need to be approved by three-fourths of the states. With overwhelming support among voters, congressional term limits will become a reality. Congress will then be confronted with a dilemma: do the right thing and propose their own term limits or sit idly by and watch the states do it for them.
Let’s have Pennsylvania play the trick on career politicians and pass term limits.
(Andy Dinniman, a Democrat from Chester County, and John Eichelberger, a Republican from Blair County, are former Pennsylvania state senators and currently Pennsylvania co-chairs for U.S. Term Limits.)
