The Importance Of Term Limits In Congress

There have been many perspectives of the Congress, especially whether members of congress should have term limits or not. This issue has been controversial and has been wanted since a very long time, but why? Well to start off the Congress, which is the legislative branch of the federal government, represents the American people and makes the nation's laws. While it only has the only 1/3 the power of the federal government Congress under Article I of the constitution Congress has the power to: make laws, declare war, raise and provide public, impeach and try federal officers, approve presidential appointments, approve treaties negotiated by the executive branch, and oversight investigations. Reasonably the citizens of America would elect members of congress who would do their best to support the needs of America citizens while keeping the country in a stable condition, but Americans trust in Congress has diminished and has brought up the issue of whether Congressmen should have term limits.
Congressmen only serve 2 years and go up for reelection, so why do people want term limits if they can elect other congressmen? Well over the years congress has established a set thought pattern and usually focus on going for reelection rather than changing important social matters like gun control, terrorist dealings,

and other things. Not only do they go for reelection, but they have built strong relations to their state and congress to the point they run unopposed like in 2014 with 43 Texas representatives going for reelection unopposed . This creates multiple problems over time, but the main ones that concerns Americans are: If Congress has the same members with the same opinions over a certain law things will never change, Congress will focus on the majority of their service on reelections rather than focus how to affect social issues, and the most important Congress won’t change because they can’t vote for another person because they run unopposed.
This matter is a serious issue because the congress makes most of our laws, and while some states can make other laws to work around them congress can make the federal government can enforce their laws. There multiple views on passing an amendment to change this.
Most of the interest groups like have taken opposition for multiple reasons, some of which are not said, but are logical. Most interest groups and lobbyists have at least some good connection in congress and if they were to have limits they would have to work harder to get some of the congress on their side every new term that is started by another. Jack Abramoff who said “When I was a lobbyist, I opposed term limits for representatives. I truly believed it was wrong for the voters to be limited in their choices. But that wasn’t the only reason I opposed them. Like almost every lobbyist I knew, I didn’t want to have to build relationships with new members constantly” supports this. However the main argument that they use to defend no term limits is it is stated under the constitution in Article I that there is no limit in terms for congress and putting a limit would be unconstitutional, like Save the Constitution beliefs in . The consequences of this however is that both the congress and interest groups will still have a strong control on legislation preventing changes needed to address the needs of American Citizens and have a strong monopoly in the Congress system.
However there is the other side, Citizens for Term Limits, that say that by putting term limits it will make congressmen focus less on worrying about reelections, give them less time develop financially beneficial commitments to lobbyists and interest groups, and help to diminish their control and the control of interest groups on legislation.

The counter argument as well is that the prohibition was unconstitutional and they made another amendment to cancel it so the same can be done about congress by adding term limits. Even though it brings benefits the consequences that might arise as well is too much radical change in laws that might do more harm than

good.
There was an attempt to pass an amendment in Washington on May 22, 1995. At the time there was a court case to pass the amendment, but it ended with the Supreme Court responding that according to the United States constitution that “ neither states nor Congress may limit the number of terms those members of Congress can serve” . Even though four versions of a way to implement amendment were presented all of them were rejected. The main problem that arises from trying to pass this amendment is that in order to pass constitutional amendment it is required to be approved by two-thirds of each house of Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures.
This translates into a pressing issue because in order to actually impose this this would make congress need to approve of this, but logically they won’t because they tend to work as a group to keep each other in congress and doing this would cause them to lose their safe position and power in Congress.
All 27 Amendments have been ratified after two-thirds of the House and Senate approve of the proposal and send it to the states for a vote, but Congress won’t pass this. So the question becomes if congress would prevent this how can this amendment get approved? Well there is another method and that is in order to pass an amendment that could be a lot more plausible in passing the amendment.
That method would be for the states to call upon a Constitutional Convention, but it needs to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States . From that Convention there can be any proposal of amendments as the states deem necessary. If enough people are presented the importance of changing Congress through term limits and getting the states to call the convention the amendment in theory could be passed
While we don’t need congress to approve of this amendment in theory the second method can pass this amendment. This has fewer problems, but more important ones. First off to get this to happen there would need to be two thirds of the legislatures of states to make this happen. Second is getting this publically known to all the states. There is also the issue if there are other more pressing issues than this then the news media will focus more on that rather than this issue.
There is also the fact that the senators could have a strong standing with the state. However if this becomes publically presented and enough people agree this could be passed and is better than asking Congress to pass something that would cut down their power significantly. If this works then this may benefit the needs of the people and change the course of America by establishing term limits on Congress through an ammendment.