Term limits for legislators date back to Colonial America and a long time prior to that. While our current Constitution doesn’t address the issue, earlier governing documents did. In contemporary America, major efforts for term limits blossomed in the early 1990s. An August 1994 policy paper from the Heritage Foundation titled “Term Limits: The Only Way to Clean Up Congress” had a couple of key takeaways probably as appropriate today as they were over thirty years ago. One was “Legislative resistance to term limits is in sharp contrast with private citizens’ strong support for them.” The second was “The only serious opponents of term limits are incumbent politicians and the special interests – particularly labor unions – that support them.”

Term limits, as the term implies, would limit the number of terms a citizen can be elected to Congress considering both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Then, in late June AMAC Action (Association of Mature American Citizens) started a poll on their website “At least seven U.S. professions have a mandatory retirement ages, some as young as 57. To that end, should members of Congress have a mandatory retirement age?” Of the 2,426 respondents that late June day, 15% said “Yes to a mandatory retirement age of 80”; 62% said “Yes to a mandatory retirement age of 75”; 20% said “No mandatory retirement age. Voters can make these decisions at election time.” And the last 3% gave that inspiring response “Unsure”. Now, almost a month later and with a total of 36,359 respondents, the results are very similar: 15.2% for age 80; 61.4% for age 75; 20.1% for let the voters decide; and 3.3% for Unsure.

This adds another critical dynamic to the term limits discussion. Today’s Congress may be older than meets the eye! It was difficult to find current information since the November 2024 election and/or reflecting Congressmen that may have otherwise resigned, retired, or passed away. In a four-month old article, there were 7 US Senators aged 80 or older, led by Iowa Senator Charles Grassley at 92. In a September 2023 article the 20 oldest Congressmen (both Senate and House) were all aged 80 or older. Do the math, there are a number of current Congressmen that a significant part of the population believes should be retired. And, this has nothing to do with the number of terms the legislator has served.

Congressional Term Limits Legislation was introduced in both the Senate and House this past January; but there has been little action on either proposal. S.J. Resolution 1 was introduced by Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) with 18 cosponsors – all Republican. H.J. Resolution 12 was introduced by Rep Ralph Norman (R-SC-5) with 28 original cosponsors. There are now 95 cosponsors (89 GOP & 6 Dem) to include Rep Tom Tiffany (R-WI-7) and Rep Tony Wied (R-WI-8).

Considering Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation, Rep Gwendolynne Moore (D-4) is the eldest member at 74 while Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has the longevity title with 13 years in the Senate preceded by 14 years in the House of Representatives. And, she had previously served in the Wisconsin State Assembly. (Six years ago I recommended Sen Baldwin for consideration as the “Poster Child” for the Term Limits endeavors.) Rep Bryan Steil at 44 (R-1) is the youngest while Rep Tony Wied (R-7) is in his first term and thus the newest member of the Wisconsin delegation.

U.S. Term Limits (https://www.termlimits.com) claims to be “known as the largest grassroots movement in American history, and US Term Limits (USTL) was, and still is the leader of that movement”. Their slogan appears to be “Citizen Legislators, Not Career Politicians”. Americans for Term Limits, a grassroots project of the Conservative Caucus, recently mailed out a National Taxpayer Fiduciary Ballot on Congressional Term Limits Legislation.

Thus, there are efforts for term limits active today, although the proposed legislation in Washington, D.C. could be on life support due to lack of legislative action. And, as the AMAC Survey pointed out, a legislator’s age should be considered with the number of terms in Congress for a robust discussion on term limits. Get informed, get involved, and share your thoughts with your federal legislators. Remember the Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, not career politicians!