Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to limit the number of terms that a Member of Congress may serve.

Key Points

• This proposal would amend the U.S. Constitution to cap House members at three terms (six years total) and Senators at two terms (twelve years total), fundamentally changing how long anyone can serve in Congress.
• Time served before the amendment is ratified would not count against the new limits, meaning every current member of Congress would effectively start fresh with a clean slate.
• Partial terms from filling vacancies would count toward the limits if the person serves more than one year in the House or more than three years in the Senate, preventing people from gaming special elections to extend their time.
• This faces one of the hardest paths in American government: it needs two-thirds of both the House and Senate to pass, and then 38 out of 50 state legislatures must ratify it within seven years.
• The resolution was introduced by Rep. Norman with bipartisan support from 28 co-sponsors and referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where most constitutional amendment proposals stall.

Impact Analysis

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