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

Key Points

• This proposed constitutional amendment would limit Senators to two consecutive terms (12 years) and Representatives to five consecutive terms (10 years). After hitting the limit, members would need to sit out at least one year before running again for the same office.
• House members would face their own separate cap. After serving five back-to-back terms, they could not run again for the House until a year had passed.
• Short stints filling a vacancy would not count toward the term limit. A Senator filling a vacancy of three years or less, or a Representative filling a vacancy of one year or less, would not have that time counted against them.
• The amendment would only apply going forward. Any terms served before ratification would not count, so no current member would be immediately forced out.
• Becoming part of the Constitution requires an extremely high bar: a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, followed by ratification by 38 state legislatures within seven years. Constitutional amendments rarely succeed, making passage very unlikely.

Impact Analysis

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