82% of Americans support term limits. 12-year cap across both chambers, staggered so institutional knowledge is preserved.
We're a policy platform with 50 researched positions on every major issue. This page breaks down our term limits plan — but there's much more to explore.
Term limits are one of the few issues in American politics with genuine bipartisan supermajority support. Eighty-two percent of Americans — across party lines — want a limit on how long members of Congress can serve. The reason is simple: career politicians have turned representative government into a permanent ruling class.
The founders envisioned citizen legislators — people who would serve for a time and then return to their communities. What America has instead is a professional political class that treats elected office as a career. The average House member now serves 8.9 years. The average senator serves 11 years. Some have held their seats for four, five, even six decades. The longest-serving member in congressional history held office for 59 years — entering Congress before the invention of the internet and still voting on technology policy half a century later.
The incumbency advantage makes this possible. Sitting members of Congress win reelection more than 90% of the time — not because they are doing an excellent job, but because they have access to tools that challengers do not: massive campaign war chests, franking privileges, name recognition built over years of taxpayer-funded visibility, party machine support, and gerrymandered districts drawn specifically to protect them.
The fundraising machine compounds the problem. Members of Congress spend an estimated 30 to 70 percent of their time fundraising — calling donors, attending events, courting PACs — instead of governing. The longer they serve, the more entrenched their donor networks become, and the harder it becomes for anyone without those networks to mount a viable challenge. This is not a meritocracy. It is an incumbency protection racket.
The result is a disconnect from constituents that grows with every term. Members who have held office for decades live in Washington, socialize in Washington, and increasingly think like Washington. Their districts become abstractions — places to visit during recess, not communities they belong to. Term limits restore the original bargain: you serve, you go home, you live under the laws you made.
This is the most common argument against term limits — and the easiest to dismantle. Elections are supposed to function as accountability mechanisms. In practice, the system is so heavily rigged in favor of incumbents that elections have become coronations, not competitions.
Incumbency advantage: House incumbents win reelection over 90% of the time. Senate incumbents win at similar rates. This is not because voters are satisfied — congressional approval ratings regularly hover between 15% and 25% — but because the structural advantages of incumbency make competition nearly impossible. Challengers face an opponent with years of name recognition, millions in campaign funds, a staff paid by taxpayers, and a district drawn to favor their party.
Campaign finance: Incumbents outraise challengers by an average of 4-to-1 in House races and even more in the Senate. Much of this money comes from PACs and lobbyists who donate strategically — not to the best candidate, but to the candidate most likely to win, which is almost always the incumbent. The fundraising gap alone makes most congressional races non-competitive before a single vote is cast.
Gerrymandering: Both parties draw congressional district maps to protect their incumbents. The result is that the vast majority of House seats are "safe" — the real election happens in the primary, where turnout is low and the electorate is ideologically extreme. General elections in these districts are formalities. The incumbent wins because the district was designed for them to win.
Name recognition and party machine support: After years in office, an incumbent's name is known to every voter in the district. Challengers start from zero. Party leadership actively discourages primary challenges to their own incumbents, cutting off funding and endorsements for anyone who dares to run. The system is designed to perpetuate itself — and it does. Elections alone cannot fix a system that has been engineered to make elections non-competitive.
The Common Good plan establishes a 12-year cumulative cap on congressional service across both chambers. It is designed to end careerism while preserving institutional knowledge — not through politicians, but through professional staff.
The plan is built on five core provisions, each addressing a specific failure of the current system. Together, they create a Congress that is accountable, responsive, and staffed by people who came to serve — not to stay.
For the complete plan with legislative detail, constitutional amendment text, and sourcing, see the full term limits issue page.
The United States is an outlier among democracies in allowing unlimited congressional tenure. Most peer nations impose some form of term or tenure limit on their legislators, their executives, or both. The countries with the healthiest democracies tend to have the strongest turnover mechanisms.
| Country | Legislative Limits | Executive Limits | Avg. Tenure | Turnover Rate | Public Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | None | 2 terms (8 yrs) | 8.9–11 yrs | ~10% | 82% |
| Mexico | Up to 12 yrs | 1 term (6 yrs) | ~6 yrs | ~50% | High |
| Costa Rica | Non-consecutive | 1 term (4 yrs) | ~4 yrs | ~65% | High |
| Philippines | 3 terms (9 yrs) | 1 term (6 yrs) | ~7 yrs | ~40% | Moderate |
| South Korea | None (de facto short) | 1 term (5 yrs) | ~6 yrs | ~45% | High |
| France | None | 2 terms (10 yrs) | ~8 yrs | ~30% | Moderate |
The pattern is clear: countries with formal term or tenure limits see higher legislative turnover, more diverse representation, and greater public trust in government. The United States, with no congressional term limits and a 90%+ incumbency reelection rate, is the outlier — not the norm.
Sources: National Democratic Institute, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Gallup. See the full issue page for complete sourcing.
The most sophisticated argument against term limits is the knowledge argument: that long-serving members accumulate legislative expertise that cannot be replaced. This argument has a surface plausibility that collapses under examination.
Staff continuity solves the knowledge problem. Congressional staff — committee directors, policy analysts, legislative counsel — are the people who actually draft bills, understand procedural history, and maintain relationships across administrations. Under the Common Good plan, these nonpartisan professionals are empowered and retained regardless of which members come and go. This is exactly how the executive branch works: presidents change every four to eight years, but the career civil service provides continuity.
Fifteen states have term limits and haven't collapsed. Michigan, California, Ohio, Florida, and eleven other states impose term limits on their state legislators. None of these states has experienced a governance crisis. Studies of term- limited legislatures consistently find that new members learn the ropes within one to two terms — well within a 12-year window — and bring fresh perspectives that career politicians lack.
Fresh perspectives vs. entrenched power: The "experience" that long-serving members accumulate is not just policy knowledge — it is power. Seniority-based committee assignments mean that the longest-serving members chair the most powerful committees, controlling what legislation reaches the floor. This creates a gerontocracy where a handful of members — some in their 80s and 90s — wield disproportionate influence over national policy. Term limits break this cycle, distributing power more broadly and ensuring that committee chairs represent current voters, not decades-old political alliances.
The real question is not whether we lose something when experienced members leave. The question is whether what we lose is worth what we gain: a Congress that looks like America, thinks like America, and goes home to live under the laws it makes. The evidence from 15 states and dozens of countries says yes.
Term limits opponents have recycled the same four arguments for decades. Each sounds reasonable until you examine the evidence. Here are the myths — and what the data actually shows.
Myth: "We'll lose our best legislators."
Reality: A 12-year cap allows members to serve over a decade — more than enough time for any talented legislator to leave a mark. The argument assumes that the best legislators are always the longest-serving ones, which is contradicted by the fact that some of the most transformative legislation in American history was passed by members in their first or second term. What term limits actually remove is not talent but entrenchment — and those are very different things.
Myth: "Lobbyists will gain even more power."
Reality: Lobbyists already have enormous power — precisely because career politicians build decades-long relationships with them. The Common Good plan pairs term limits with a 10-year post- service lobbying ban and professional nonpartisan staff who provide the policy expertise that members currently get from lobbyists. Studies of term-limited state legislatures have not found the lobbyist takeover that critics predicted. What they found was that new members are less beholden to existing lobbying relationships.
Myth: "The Founders opposed term limits."
Reality: The Articles of Confederation — the first American constitution — included term limits. The Constitutional Convention debated them extensively. Many founders, including Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, explicitly advocated for rotation in office. The omission of term limits from the final Constitution was a compromise, not a consensus. And the founders could not have imagined a Congress where members serve for 59 years in an era when life expectancy was 35.
Myth: "Elections are enough — just vote them out."
Reality: If elections were sufficient accountability mechanisms, incumbents wouldn't win 90%+ of the time while Congress has a 20% approval rating. The structural advantages of incumbency — campaign finance, gerrymandering, name recognition, party machine support — make most congressional elections non-competitive. Term limits don't replace elections. They restore them by ensuring that every seat is eventually open — and every election is eventually competitive.
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82% of Americans support term limits. Career politicians won't vote to limit their own power — which is why this has to come from the people. Read the full plan and join the movement.