H/T Joe LaVeque
Ted Cruz, one the enemy of Donald Trump, is now helping him drain the swamp by introducing a constitutional amendment to limit congressional terms to two in the Senate and three in the House of Representatives.
While I appreciate the sentiment I see no way that members of Congress are going to voluntarily vote themselves off the gravy train. New Gingrich attempted it in his Contract With America over 20 years ago and it was the only provision of the Contract that wasn’t passed, simply because it required congressional approval. Ha! As if.
There is a method, however, to accomplish this seemingly impossible but very necessary amendment, and it has been gaining momentum over the past few years.
Passing much-needed national legislation can not only be accomplished in the chambers of Congress, but also by the states themselves via a Convention of States, a sort of end run around a Congress that will not adhere to the people’s will.
A resolution calling for a Convention of States has been making the rounds through the state legislatures. It has been approved by several state legislatures already and has passed in one chamber in many states, awaiting passage in the other chamber.
A majority of 2/3 (34) of the states must pass the resolution to convene a Convention of States. A 3/4 (38) majority of states is required to pass and ratify constitutional amendments. The first item on the Convention of States agenda is congressional term limits.
As reported by the Washington Examiner, Sen. Ted Cruz announced Friday that he will introduce a constitutional amendment to limit the number of terms members of the Senate and the House of Representatives can serve.
Cruz, along with Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., made the announcement in an op-ed in the Washington Post, and said their plan is a great way to implement President-elect Trump’s plan to “drain the swamp.” The proposal would limit members of the Senate to two terms, while members of the House would be limited to three terms in office.
“On Election Day, the American people made a resounding call to ‘drain the swamp’ that is modern Washington. Yet on Capitol Hill, we seem mired in the same cycle of complacency,” wrote the pair of conservative lawmakers. “The game hasn’t changed, and the players remain the same. Thankfully, there’s a solution available that, while stymied by the permanent political class, enjoys broad public support.”
“Passing term limits will demonstrate that Congress has actually heard the voice of the people,” they wrote. “We believe that the rise of political careerism in modern Washington is a drastic departure from what the founders intended of our federal governing bodies. To effectively ‘drain the swamp,’ we believe it is past time to enact term limits for Congress.”
I would be in favor of one term in the Senate and three in the House. I would also like to see Senate and House members moved back to their home states away from the cesspool we call K Street (lobbyists).
