Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republican senators re-introduced a resolution Thursday calling for term limits on members of Congress.
The move, which would require a constitutional amendment, would limit Senators to two terms in office and members of the House to three terms in office.
Senators serve six-year terms, while House members serve two-year terms. All members of Congress can continue to serve as long as they are re-elected.
"The rise of political careerism in today’s Congress is a sharp departure from what the Founders intended for our federal governing bodies," Cruz in a press release reintroducing the bill.
Joining Cruz in co-sponsoring the reintroduced bill were, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, Sen. Todd Young, R-Indiana and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania.
“Washington is more dysfunctional than ever, and I’m fighting every day to make reforms in the best interest of American families," Scott said in a statement. "Career politicians are never going to make the tough choices needed to get our nation on a successful path. They care more about politics and their next election than the future of this country. That has to end now. We need to reimagine government and term limits are the right place to start.”
Terms starting before the amendment’s ratification would not be counted in determining a candidate’s eligibility.
Cruz has introduced similar resolutions calling for a Constitutional amendment twice before in 2017 and 2019. Neither resolution sparked serious legislative discussion.
For a Constitutional amendment to pass, it must be approved by two-thirds of the House and Senate and then three-fourths of the states.
The closest congressional term limits have come to reality was when a similar resolution, that proposed two six-year terms for senators and six two-year terms for House members, was introduced by Florida Rep. Bill McCollum in 1995. That bill failed to reach a two-thirds majority in the House in 1995, with a 227-204 vote.
This story was originally published by WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida.
