Recently Donald Trump has announced objectives for his second term as president, which include passing a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Congress. The reality about term limits is that they have not stopped us from electing bad presidents time and time again. Through the years, no matter who was elected president, the size and scope of the federal government have grown, the constitution has been ignored, and for the most part, our national debt has increased. Why should we expect things to be any different if term limits were enacted for congressmen and senators?
President Trump released his plan to DISMANTLE the Deep State. Now that he's President-elect, this is the most important three minutes of video on the internet right now.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 8, 2024
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When congressmen and senators leave office, they have generally been replaced by people who have voted for the same unconstitutional things that their predecessors did. Term limits would only speed up this process of repeated failure. If term limits had been enacted in the past, good representatives and senators like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie likely would not be serving today, and their positive influence would have been made minimal. If Ron Paul had not been able to return to serve in Congress, the Tea Party and the modern liberty movement likely would not have happened, and the progress that has been made and other positive outcomes may not have been accomplished.
Starting in 2018, Young Americans for Liberty, which was formerly known as Students for Ron Paul, has gotten hundreds of principled individuals elected at the state house and state senate levels across the country. However, their work is not finished after someone is elected. Young Americans for Liberty holds their coalition members accountable. When someone votes against the principles that they were elected on, door knockers are deployed to their district to inform the constituents of the mistakes that were made, and they are asked to call their representative to encourage them to vote correctly. If their voting is not corrected, they are removed from the coalition, and Young Americans for Liberty finds someone to run against them. This is only one of the examples that show why term limits are unnecessary.
Young Americans for Liberty also do their part in getting principled legislation passed. An elected member of their coalition sponsors a bill, and it gets assigned to a committee. The legislators that are committed to supporting it as well as those that are not committed are identified. Door knockers are then deployed to the districts of the legislators that are not committed to supporting it, and they knock on doors and tell the constituents to call their legislator and encourage them to vote for the bill. After the bill passes the committee, the same process is repeated when the bill goes to the full house or senate. This process has led to many victories, such as Education Savings Accounts being passed in Kentucky, a state that previously did not have any form of school choice. This is also how constitutional carry has been passed in several states. These are merely a handful of the many victories that Young Americans for Liberty has had using this process.
Term limits may sound like a good idea on the surface, but in reality, they are just a band-aid fix that does not address the actual issue. When it comes down to it, the length of time that someone is in Congress is not the main issue, so changing that will not fix the problem. Term limits would actually end up harming the ability to continue to get good legislation passed down the road.
The period after each election before the new individuals take office is known as a lame duck. There is always controversy as to what the legislature will do in this session, considering that the senators and congressmen that lost reelection will not have to be held accountable to their representatives for what they vote for. Right now, this only applies to a handful of people each time. Some might argue that term limits are needed because of the power of incumbency. The reality is that if term limits are enacted for Congress, the power grab will only be intensified and take place at a faster rate than it otherwise would have. There is no telling what congressmen and senators would be willing to vote for, considering that as many as one third of senators and potentially every house member could be a lame duck at the same time!
The answer is to continue to get educated and principled individuals elected and educate the electorate as well. There are multiple resources available, such as The John Birch Society’s The Constitution is the Solution video series, as well as constitutional curriculum offered by groups like The National Center for Constitutional Studies, The Institute on the Constitution, and the Tenth Amendment Center. Our focus should be on real solutions to the issues that we face instead of band-aid fixes that just hurt our progress in the long run.
Brandon is a freelance journalist based in the metro-Milwaukee area. His work has been featured in Liberty Sentinel Media, Wisconsin Conservative Digest, and Reality News Media. He has worked full-time in politics for six years. This includes leading successful campaigns for legislatures at the state and congressional levels, and successful deployments to get bills passed in Kentucky and Texas. In his spare time, he enjoys weightlifting, running, hiking, and listening to classic rock.
This article is very well done!