Usually, the subject of term limits only comes up when an individual in office has lost someone’s favor. As a result, few political offices have term limits associated with them. One may wonder if the government really needs term limits in all of its offices. Supposing it does, the next question would be whether or not those laws would be constitutional.
Every citizen of the United States probably knows that the president serves a maximum of two terms, each term consisting of four years each. This custom started with George Washington and has endured as an unspoken law, according to Britannica. On February 27, 1951, the United States ratified the 22nd Amendment, making the term limit official. In contrast, while members of Congress have terms, they don’t have Constitutionally addressed term limits. Representatives serve two-year terms, while Senators serve six-year terms. Historically, Congressional term limits have been advocated by Representative Thomas Tucker in 1789, but never actually came into effect. As reported by Senate Report 104-158, he proposed a term limit of five for Senators and a term limit of three for Representatives. Further contrasted from the Executive and Legislative Branches of the government, the Judicial Branch doesn’t have terms; the members can serve for their entire lives. In other words, when put into office, a Supreme Court Justice holds that office as long as they wish and can only be forcibly removed through impeachment, as stated by the Supreme Court of the United States.
The dispute over term limits for government positions has been a longstanding one. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton argued in The Federalist Papers for no term limitations to be placed upon the president, saying that they would “be re-eligible [for election] as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke the presidential norm after being elected to serve a third term in the 1940 election, as well as a fourth term in 1944 that he did not live to the end of. Recently, the debate of Congressional term limits has returned to the public’s attention, as several states have enacted restrictions on the number of times their members of Congress can run for office. One term of eighteen years has been suggested for Supreme Court Justices, however the site LegBranch found this to be unconstitutional.
As teenagers assimilate into the political world, they begin to form their own opinions about the government, such as how it should be run. Some of those young individuals may even believe that they could do a good job in one of the elected positions. Yet, when they run for that office, they may find themselves up against an old white guy who has been elected to that office upwards of five times already. Of course, it could be possible that this old white guy has been elected so many times because the people genuinely want him in that position, but it could also be that people just vote for him because they know him and he hasn’t proven himself to be entirely unfit for the job. If one finds themselves inclined to think that the government would benefit from more turnover and younger minds being given a chance to get into office, then perhaps term limits would appear more favorable. However, if a hopeful young individual does win the election, suppose they do just as good a job as they imagined they would, and the community they work for majorly agrees. In that scenario, term limits might not seem as desirable.
The United States Constitution tends to be rather labyrinthine in its language, which makes it hard to establish term limits. Though a foundational document, it can be both vague at some points and incredibly specific at others. The only way to clarify these points to make them more definitive would be to amend the Constitution. As such, the likelihood of any amendments relating to term limits being passed in the near future will probably remain low due to the mandated “extra work” of altering the Constitution. All that being said, term limits might not even be necessary. In the end, whether or not term limits would benefit the country, democracy will prevail. Or something like that.
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