Philip Blumel: Term Limits Convention bills are dropping state after state. Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to No Uncertain Terms, the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode number 256, published on January 27, 2025.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: After the most successful year yet since the Term Limits Convention project was launched, 2025 is off to a wild start, with the Term Limits Convention resolutions being introduced in at least 10 states by the end of the first month of the year. I say at least because it’s hard to keep up with the news. It’s coming so fast. On top of the 10 or so introductions, there are also states where the resolution is in drafting and others where a sponsor has committed to carry the bill, but it’s not been introduced yet. Sometimes we know it’s going to be introduced, but we don’t know who the sponsor is, etcetera.
Philip Blumel: For the update information, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. Now, if you go there, you’ll see, for instance, that the Term Limits Convention resolution has already passed its first committee vote in the Indiana Senate. And who knows what else by the time you check it. If the TLC has been introduced in your state, you’ll see a Take Action button next to it. Click it and send a quick message to your state representative or senator urging him or her to vote Yes.
Philip Blumel: Now, for the newbies listening to the podcast, the Term Limits Convention resolution is an official application for an amendment proposing convention under Article 5 of the US Constitution. The convention, if approved by two-thirds of the states, would be limited to the subject of congressional term limits. A proposal from the convention would require ratification by three-quarters of the states, but we don’t expect that that ratification will be necessary, as history suggests a successful convention movement will be preempted by congressional action. We’ll see. Here’s how KATV ABC Channel 7 told the story last week in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Speaker 3: Well, good evening to you. We begin tonight with the effort to pass a joint resolution at the Arkansas legislative session that could have national implications.
Speaker 4: It calls for a convention of states to impose term limits on the US Congress. Channel 7’s Andrew Mobley spoke with the sponsor of that resolution to learn more today.
Andrew Mobley: There has been a decades-long push nationwide to impose term limits on federal lawmakers, but it may take an unprecedented action afforded states by the US Constitution. Proponents of congressional term limits argue that greater rotation of lawmakers would allow citizens greater say through the electoral process, clear out career politicians, and reduce lobbyists and special interests’ influence in the nation’s legislature.
Rep. Jack Ladyman: It’s better for the people because you get more input from the people: Different ideas, different viewpoints. I mean, that’s the beauty of our country.
Andrew Mobley: Previous efforts to institute congressional term limits at the federal level have failed. The most recent, a resolution at the 118th Congress, was shot down in the House Judiciary Committee. Though federal lawmakers have yet to agree to term limits on themselves, the states are now stepping in to achieve the change through Article 5 of the US Constitution, which allows states to call conventions for proposing constitutional amendments if at least two-thirds of states, 34 minimum, apply for it. And that’s never happened before.
Chris Keener: There has never been an Article 5 convention at all in the history.
Andrew Mobley: But it may not take a historic convention to impose term limits if enough pressure is put on federal lawmakers.
Chris Keener: As they feel this pressure from the states getting to decide their terms and decide if they are grandfathered in or not, they’re going to end up passing it themselves.
Andrew Mobley: Keener and Ladyman are confident the resolution will have the support it needs to pass in Arkansas.
Chris Keener: Polling was just done here in the state of Arkansas. That poll’s at 81% that support support getting term limits on Congress.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Andrew. And according to Keener, nine states have already passed resolutions calling for congressional term limits. And Arkansas is currently among about six states that have similar resolutions that have been filed so far this year.
Philip Blumel: Congrats to our own Chris Keener of US Term Limits in the clip. Now, you’ll note the clip references new polling on the popularity of congressional term limits in Arkansas: 81% support. Well, independent polling is being done in many of the states where the resolutions are being introduced, and voters keep telling pollsters the same thing, same thing as they’ve always have. We see 81 support also in Idaho, 79% in Arizona, 84% in New Hampshire. Same story in Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nebraska, Michigan. The people are calling for this, and the states are listening. Eventually, Congress is not going to be able to ignore it.
Philip Blumel: While we are working to establish term limits on the US Congress, one Congress member has introduced a bill to weaken term limits on the US President. Trump fan Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee introduced a resolution that would change the US Constitution to permit the president to serve three terms instead of two, as currently mandated by the 22nd Amendment. Over the years, polls have shown strong support from Americans for the two-term limit on the president. But every once in a while, a partisan congress member will pull a stunt like this to show support for their party-sitting president and to fire up the base. It never does. For instance, I recall that in 1995, Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier, a super Clinton fan, introduced a bill to repeal the 22nd Amendment completely. He might have expected a roar of support from loyal partisans, but all he got was crickets.
Philip Blumel: My prediction? History will repeat. But since the issue has been raised, let’s take a deep dive into the history of the 22nd Amendment and presidential term limits. The timing is good to do so for another reason as well. Term limits day February 27th is just around the corner, and this is the day that we ask people to make some public show of support for term limits locally or online. For term limits swag, like yard signs, T-shirts, car magnets, go to termlimits.com/store. Termlimits.com/store. We’ll talk more about Term Limits Day in our next episode of No Uncertain Terms.
Philip Blumel: But what does this have to do with presidential term limits? Well, because February 27th, 1951, is the date the 22nd Amendment was ratified. A while back on the podcast, I offered a review of Bill Kauffman’s book about Luther Martin titled, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet. Here’s another. I want to share with you a fascinating, more or less new book that may be the best history of presidential term limits available. It is brimming with facts and insights relevant to the effort to term limit the US Congress as well. The book is called The Twenty-Second Amendment and the Limits of Presidential Tenure, A Tradition Restored, by Martin B. Gold. It was published by Lexington Books in 2020.
Philip Blumel: Gold is an attorney, teacher, and author who lives in Washington, DC, and is an adjunct at George Washington University School of Political Management, where he teaches a course on advanced legislative procedures. The book tells a detailed chronological story about the rise of the presidential term limits tradition in the United States, starting with the Constitutional Convention of 1787. To his great credit, Gold focuses on sharing information and lets the historical figures do the editorializing. This book is by no means a partisan polemic. Instead, it is a serious academic book written for the library and specialist market. So, good luck finding an affordable copy.
Philip Blumel: Gold’s history offers three important insights that are relevant to today’s debate over term limits. One, Term limits are a founding principle of American democracy, not a modern invention. Two, Support for term limits has always been bipartisan, even if specific politicians often push the idea for partisan ends. And three, Politicians who oppose term limits often couch their efforts in respectful words for the tradition and even include alternative term limits arrangements in order to divide support.
Philip Blumel: Let’s start with the first point. Term limits were there at the founding of this nation. Sometimes we hear that the authors of the Constitution rejected term limits at the Convention of 1787, and indeed, there are none in the original version of that document, but that’s not the whole story. The 1787 Convention was called by Virginia after a smaller convention was held at Annapolis, Maryland for the purpose of a rework of the Articles of Confederation.
Philip Blumel: Taking the lead, Virginia Governor Edmund Randolph presented the outlines of a new constitutional framework with 15 resolutions known as the Virginia Plan. As originally presented, the Virginia Plan called for a one-term limit on the presidency. This then was the starting point of the term limits discussion. As Representative Lewis Graham, a Republican from Pennsylvania, pointed out, no subject took up more time in the 1787 Convention than the length and the number of terms of the president.
Philip Blumel: In fact, although some like Gouverneur Morris of New York were opposed to all term limits, others such as Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and Virginia’s George Mason and the colorful Luther Martin of Maryland argued for a single six- or seven-year term. The lack of a term limit on the presidency was more a function of lack of agreement on what a proper term and term limit should be and not a consensus that term limits were not appropriate. As Gold notes, Morris was the most convicted on the subject and turned out to be, “The framer most responsible for shaping the presidential office.” Other features of the new Constitution, such as the Electoral College, were seen as safeguards that persuaded term-limit supporters to compromise on their idea, but the lack of presidential term limits concerned many.
Philip Blumel: Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as minister to France at the time and did not actually participate in the 1787 Convention, wrote to James Madison in December of that year that “A feature I dislike and strongly dislike is the abandonment in every instance of the principle of rotation in office.” Jefferson initially sided with those who supported a single seven-year term, but later came around to the view that two four-year terms was superior. “This is not due to the extension of one year, but because there would be a peaceful way of withdrawing a man midway who is doing wrong.”
Philip Blumel: In the state constitutions created to ratify the US Constitution, Virginia, North Carolina, and New York all officially called for constitutional amendments to include eight-year presidential term limits, but these did not make it into what we now call the Bill of Rights. So, it failed to be established in law at that time; became established in tradition instead. In his farewell address in 1796, the nation’s first president, George Washington, stepped down after two terms, citing some term limits friendly reasoning, but was not actually adamant about the two-term cap.
Philip Blumel: The tradition got nailed down when the third president, Thomas Jefferson, also declined to run for a third term with explicit reference to Washington’s example. As Jefferson said, “Believing that a representative government responsible at short periods of re-election is what produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it is a duty to do no act that shall essentially impair that principle.” Their tradition became part of the American psyche, although it was periodically challenged by those who continued to advocate a single-term limit.
Philip Blumel: President Andrew Jackson, who also followed the tradition and retired after two terms, sent six messages to Congress calling for an amendment to create a single four or six-year term for the President. This embrace of presidential term limits were deep and nonpartisan, much as term limits are today. The initial challenges to the two-term tradition came from the Republican Party, with President Ulysses S. Grant in 1876 and 1880, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. In each case, Democrats led the defense of the two-term tradition.
Philip Blumel: As Gold points out, “Talk of a third term for Grant roiled the midterm election. Grant failed to renounce interest, stoking Democratic turnout in 1874.” This midterm election disrupted Republican dominance of Congress that had existed since the end of the Civil War. In 1875, Representative William Springer, a Democrat from Illinois, led House Democrats in passing a resolution declaring a third-term bid to be contrary to the public interest. In the end, both the Grant and Roosevelt challenges turned out to be false alarms.
Philip Blumel: Both presidents, who would have allowed themselves to be drafted in denomination, were not so drafted. Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party and ran with the Nascent Progressive Party. Anticipating this, Democrats inserted in their platform a pro-term limits plank. After the election, hearings were held and such an amendment was approved in the US Senate on a bipartisan basis. The House, however, took no action. Perhaps we should say that the support was tri-partisan.
Philip Blumel: Concern that yet another Republican incumbent, Calvin Coolidge, might be slightly encouraging another “draft movement” for a nomination to a third term, Senator Robert Lafayette Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and later co-founder of the Progressive Party, introduced a sense of the Senate resolution saying the two-term tradition must be observed. This resolution passed 56 to 26, with 37 Democrats, 18 Republicans, and one senator from the Farmer Labor-Party.
Philip Blumel: Now, this multi-partisan history is important as there is an inaccurate perception that term limits have historically been a Republican issue. This misconception stems from the fact that a Republican Congress led the imposition of presidential term limits after President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the war as a pretext to retain power for a third in 1940, and even part of a fourth 1944 term. True, but even with Democratic majorities in the Congress, hearings were still held on a presidential term limits amendment in 1945.
Philip Blumel: Several resolutions were introduced, including a two-term eight-year limit, and also for a single six-year term. The latter, proposed by Democratic Senator W. Lee O’Daniel of Texas, would also have limited members of Congress to six years. Then, in the 1946 midterms, the Republican Party captured large majorities in both Houses, with the term limits amendment as their first order of business. This ended with approval and ratification on February 27, 1951, a day celebrated today as Term Limits Day.
Philip Blumel: The debate over the amendment in both Houses is fascinating, but much of the rhetoric would be familiar to term limits advocates and opponents today. More interesting perhaps is a couple of anti-term limit strategies and arguments that arose. In the debate over the amendment, there was a movement to replace the two-term eight-year tradition with a single six-year term amendment. Now, while this idea has competed with the two-term tradition since before the Constitution was written, the movement for the single term at this time had among its backers prominent anti-term limit senators who were trying to derail a term limits amendment altogether.
Philip Blumel: Specifically, House Judiciary Committeeman Representative Emmanuel Seller, a Democrat from New York, who admitted before and later that he opposed any term limits amendment, proposed the single six-year term idea in the House and pressed it. Now, is this not an echo of today’s politician who claims to agree wholeheartedly with the need for congressional term limits, but only for this unique proposal of his or her own that has no chance of passage?
Philip Blumel: Another interesting argument against the term limits amendment was that Congress need not act at all because the constitution under Article 5 permitted states to initiate the amendment process. If sentiment was truly strong for term limits, two-thirds of the states could apply for a convention on the subject, and Congress, per Article 5, must call one. Such a movement was indeed underway. Inexplicably not mentioned by Gold, prior to the 1945 Congressional hearings, at least four states: Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin officially applied for a convention to propose amendments limited to the subject of presidential term limits.
Philip Blumel: Does that sound familiar? Of course. That movement mirrors one today where nine states: Florida, Alabama, Missouri, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and North Carolina have applied for a congressional term limits convention. Like presidential term limits, congressional term limits have a long pedigree, and one looks forward to the future when a history book of this quality can be written about another successful campaign to pass the term limits amendment. As Gold’s excellent book demonstrates, it can be done. As the electoral successes of 2024 suggest, it will be done.
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Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of No Uncertain Terms. The Term Limits Convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the Term Limits Movement. To check on the status of the Term Limits Convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There, you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the committee process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a Take Action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching.
Philip Blumel: That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the Term Limits Convention resolution or the bill has not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to US Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the US Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at US Term Limits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now, LinkedIn.