Term Limits In The United States

In the United States, term limits, also referred to as ''rotation in office'', restrict the number of terms of office an officeholder may serve. At the federal level, the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution limits the president of the United States to two four-year terms. State government offices in some, but not all, states are term-limited, including executive, legislative, and judicial offices.

Historical background

The Constitution

Term limits can date back to the American Revolution, and prior to that to the democracies and republics of antiquity. The council of 500 in ancient Athens rotated its entire membership annually, as did the ephorate in ancient Sparta. The ancient Roman Republic featured a system of elected magistrates—tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls —who served a single term of one year, with re-election to the same magistracy forbidden for ten years ''(see cursus honorum)''. According to historian Garrett Fagan, office holding in the Roman Republic was based on "limited tenure of office" which ensured that "authority circulated frequently", helping to prevent corruption. An additional benefit of the ''cursus honorum'' or ''Run of Offices'' was to bring the "most experienced" politicians to the upper echelons of power-holding in the ancient republic. Many of the founders of the United States were educated in the classics, and quite familiar with rotation in the office during antiquity. The debates of that day reveal a desire to study and profit from the object lessons offered by ancient democracy.

Prior to independence, several colonies had already experimented with term limits. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639, for example, prohibited the colonial governor from serving consecutive terms by setting terms at one year's length and holding "that no person be chosen Governor above once in two years." Shortly after independence, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 set maximum service in the Pennsylvania General Assembly at "four years in seven". Benjamin Franklin's influence is seen not only in that he chaired the constitutional convention which drafted the Pennsylvania constitution, but also because it included, virtually unchanged, Franklin's earlier proposals on executive rotation. Pennsylvania's plural executive was composed of twelve citizens elected for the term of three years, followed by a mandatory vacation of four years.

The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, established term limits for the delegates to the Continental Congress, mandating in Article V that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years."

On October 2, 1789, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of thirteen to examine forms of government for the impending union of the states. Among the proposals was that from the State of Virginia, written by Thomas Jefferson, urging a limitation of tenure, "to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office the members of the Continental Congress". The committee made recommendations, which as regards congressional term limits were incorporated unchanged into the Articles of Confederation (1781–89). The fifth Article stated that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate o the continental congressfor more than three years in any term of six years".

Term limits in the Constitution

In contrast to the Articles of Confederation, the federal constitution convention at Philadelphia omitted mandatory term limits from the U.S. Constitution of 1789. At the convention, some delegates spoke passionately against term limits such as Rufus King, who said "that he who has proved himself to be most fit for an Office, ought not to be excluded by the constitution from holding it." The Electoral College, it was believed by some delegates at the convention, could have a role to play in limiting unfit officers from continuing.

When the states ratified the Constitution (1787–88), several leading statesmen regarded the lack of mandatory limits to tenure as a dangerous defect, especially, they thought, as regards the presidency and the Senate. Richard Henry Lee viewed the absence of legal limits to tenure, together with certain other features of the Constitution, as "most highly and dangerously oligarchic". Both Jefferson and George Mason advised limits on re-election to the Senate and to the Presidency, because said Mason, "nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation". The historian Mercy Otis Warren, warned that "there is no provision for a rotation, nor anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well-timed bribery, will probably be done".

Presidential term limits 1789-1952

says George Washington did not set the informal precedent for a two-term limit for the Presidency. He only meant he was too worn out to personally continue in office. It was Thomas Jefferson who made it a principle in 1808. He made many statements calling for term limits in one form or another.

The two-term limit tradition was maintained for 132 years. It was unsuccessfully challenged by Ulysses Grant in 1880, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, and Woodrow Wilson in 1920. Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully broke it in 1940, citing the outbreak of World War II. The two Roosevelts are the only presidents to run for a third term in a general election; Grant and Wilson only sought to gain their parties’ nomination. Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected in 1944 for a fourth term amidst the United States’ engagement in World War II, but died shortly afterwards in office. The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1951 formally establishing in law the two-term limit—although it did not apply to the incumbent Harry S Truman, Franklin Roosevelt’s successor. Truman declined to run for a third term in 1952.

The fact that "perpetuity in office" was not approached until the 20th century is due in part to the influence of rotation in office as a popular 19th-century concept. "Ideas are, in truth, forces", and rotation in office enjoyed such normative support, especially at the local level, that it altered political reality.

During the US Civil War, the Constitution of the Confederate States limited its president to a single six-year term. Only Jefferson Davis served as Confederate president, and he did not complete a full term in office before surrendering to the Union.

Era of incumbency

The practice of nomination rotation for the House of Representatives began to decline after the Civil War. It took a generation or so before the direct primary system, civil service reforms, and the ethic of professionalism worked to eliminate rotation in office as a common political practice. By the turn of the 20th century the era of incumbency was coming into full swing.

A total of 8 presidents served two full terms and declined a third and three presidents served one full term and refused a second. After World War II, however, an officeholder class had developed to the point that congressional tenure rivaled that of the U.S. Supreme Court, where tenure is for life.

Term limits movement

A movement in favor of term limits took hold in the early 1990s, and reached its apex in 1992-94, a period when 17 states enacted term limits through state legislation or state constitutional amendments.John M. Carey, Richard G. Niemi & Lynda W. Powell, ''Term Limits in State Legislatures'' (University of Michigan Press: 2009), pp. 1-2.

Many of the laws enacted limited terms for both the state legislature and in the state's delegation to Congress; as they pertain to Congress, these laws were struck down as unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court in ''U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton'' (1995), in which the court ruled, on a 5–4 vote, that state governments cannot limit the terms of members of the national government.

Where rotation in the legislative branch has withstood court challenges, term limits continue to garner popular support. As of 2002, the advocacy group " U.S. Term Limits" found that in the 17 states where state legislators served in rotation, public support for term limits ranged from 60 to 78 percent.

Federal term limits

Term limits at the federal level are restricted to the executive branch and some agencies. Judicial appointments at the federal level are made for life, and are not subject to election or to term limits. The U.S. Congress remains (since the Thornton decision of 1995) without electoral limits.

President

George Washington's decision in 1796 not to run for a third term has often been given credit as the start of a tradition that no president should ever run for a third term. Washington wanted to retire when his first term ended in 1792 but all his advisors begged him to stand for re-election. By 1796, he insisted on retiring, for he felt exhausted, and was disgusted with the virulent personal attacks on his integrity. His Farewell Address very briefly mentioned why he would not run for a third term, and goes on to give a great deal of political advice, but it does not mention term limits. After his death, his refusal to run was explained in terms of a "no-third-tradition". argues, "The argument for term limits has a solid and respectable pedigree. Contrary to popular belief, however, that pedigree does not begin with George Washington." The second president, John Adams, lost re-election in 1800 to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson himself declined re-election to a third term, attributing the precedent to Washington.

In the 1780s, about half the states provided term limits for governors. The Constitutional convention of 1787 discussed the issue and decided not to institute presidential term limits. "The matter was fairly discussed in the Convention," Washington wrote in 1788, "and to my full convictions <…> I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the services of any man, who on some great emergency shall be deemed universally, most capable of serving the Public", even after serving two terms. The Constitution, Washington explained, retained sufficient checks against political corruption and stagnant leadership without a presidential term limits provision. Jefferson, however, strongly endorsed a policy of term limits. He rejected calls from supporters that he run for a third term in 1808, telling several state legislatures in 1807-1808 that he needed to support "the sound precedent set by isillustrious predecessor."

In 1861, the Confederate States of America adopted a six-year term for their president and vice president and barred the president from seeking re-election. That innovation was endorsed by many American politicians after the Civil War, most notably by Rutherford B. Hayes in his inaugural address. Ulysses Grant was urged to run for a third term in 1876, but he refused. He did try to win the 1880 nomination, but was defeated in part because of popular anti-third-term sentiment. Theodore Roosevelt had already served over 7 years and in 1912, after a four-year hiatus, ran for a third term. He was violently criticized and was almost killed by John Flammang Schrank for doing so. The 1912 election was ultimately won by Woodrow Wilson.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (president, 1933–1945) was the only president to be elected more than twice, having won a third term in 1940 and a fourth term in 1944 (though he died in office three months into his fourth term). This gave rise to a successful move to formalize the traditional two-term limit by amending the U.S. Constitution. As ratified in 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment provides that "no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice". The new Amendment explicitly did not apply to the incumbent president, Harry S. Truman. However, Truman declined to seek re-election to a third term in 1952.

Congress

Reformers during the early 1990s used the initiative and referendum to put congressional term limits on the ballot in 24 states. Voters in eight of these states approved the congressional term limits by an average electoral margin of two to one. It was an open question whether states had the constitutional authority to enact these limits. In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in ''U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton'', , that states cannot impose term limits upon their federal representatives or senators.

In the 1994 elections, part of the Republican platform