Why We Need Term Limits in Congress | Part 4: The Constitutional Wall

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]If term limits are this popular, why has no one state just passed them? 23 states tried. Arkansas voters passed a ballot initiative in 1992 that would block congressional candidates from appearing on the ballot after three house terms or two Senate terms. By 1995, 23 states had passed similar laws. Then the Supreme Court took the case. US Term Limits, Inc. versus Thornton. The ruling came down 5 to four. The court said, "No, states cannot impose term limits on federal office holders." The reasoning was that the Constitution lays out the qualifications for serving in Congress and those qualifications are exclusive.

[00:00:40]Age, citizenship, residency. That is it.

[00:00:44]States cannot add to that list. Justice Clarence Thomas, who is still on the bench, wrote the disscent. He argued that the people of each state retain the power to set their own eligibility requirements. The five vote majority wins. The four vote descent does not.

[00:01:00]Term limits are dead at the state level.

[00:01:02]So what is left? Two paths, both spelled out in article 5 of the constitution.

[00:01:07]Path one, Congress proposes a constitutional amendment by a twothirds vote in both chambers, then sends it to the states for ratification by 3/4s of state legislatures.

[00:01:18]Path two, twothirds of state legislatores call a constitutional convention. Either path is functionally impossible without the cooperation of the people who would be termlimited.

[00:01:30]Path one requires 290 house members and 67 senators to vote to limit their own careers. Path two requires 34 state legislatures to call a convention, which has not happened since 1787 and which a lot of constitutional scholars think might unleash chaos because the rules for one were never written.

[00:01:52]This is why I said in part one that congressional silence on term limits is a tale. The mechanism for change is controlled by the people who benefit from no change. That is a structural problem. It is not a political problem.

[00:02:07]It cannot be solved by electing better people because better people inherit the same incentive to stay. This is also why every administration that has talked about term limits from Trump's first term to Biden's Supreme Court reform proposal has produced no legislation.

[00:02:24]Nothing has moved. In part five, the finale, I am going to do something I almost never do, which is engage with the strongest counterargument against my own thesis because there is one and it deserves a hearing.