Few would seriously argue that Congress today is performing well.
The federal government recently experienced the longest shutdown in American history when Congress failed to pass the annual spending bills or a continuing resolution. Congress has regularly failed to address pressing policy matters such as immigration.
In this context, former members of Congress, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and David Trone recently argued that term limits would produce better governance by our nation’s legislature.
Term limits are a perennially popular political reform with Americans across the political spectrum, but one that political scientists are rightly highly skeptical of. They are an overbroad intervention with counterproductive consequences, and would not solve the problems that the authors claim plague Congress.
DeSantis and Trone argue that term limits are needed to prevent Congress from being dominated by “career politicians” more concerned with protecting their own power instead of benefiting the American public.
But there is nothing inherently wrong with being a career politician. Americans should want their representatives to be effective, and effectiveness in Congress depends on experience.
Longer tenure allows members to accrue policy expertise and develop procedural knowledge and relationships with their colleagues. These capabilities are necessary for building majority support for legislation and navigating it through the legislative process, and are not easily replicated by first-term members.
Furthermore, the need to run for reelection provides a powerful incentive for legislators for good job performance. While DeSantis and Trone point to presidential term limits as a model, looking at state legislatures is more appropriate, given the similar natures of the offices.
Indeed, research finds that state legislators serving their final term under term limits tend to hold less frequent office hours for the public, do less to help constituents with problems with government and participate less in roll call voting.
These results suggest that term limits for Congress would similarly result in members focusing less on crafting and passing good policy, conducting oversight and providing constituent services, and more on securing post-congressional employment.
The authors also argue that term limits will break the cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists and special interests. Evidence supporting this conjecture is scant.
If anything, term limits would make lawmakers rely more on special interests, as legislators would not have the requisite time to learn about the numerous, complex policy issues they must take important votes on. Research on state legislatures finds that implementing term limits shifts power away from the legislature toward (among other players) interest groups.
Our system of government already empowers voters to remove ineffective, corrupt or otherwise problematic representatives and senators.
All members of Congress must run for reelection if they wish to continue serving. If constituents are displeased with the body of work that their elected representatives have put in during a given term, they can simply decline to reelect them.
On the other hand, we would hope that members who have done a good job stay in Congress; these members would tend to be reelected. Term limits, however, would force out members who are effective and do good work for the American people, to remove those who may not.
DeSantis and Trone correctly note that incumbents enjoy several advantages against challengers in their bids for reelection, such as name recognition and campaign resources. Nonetheless, it remains possible for challengers to defeat incumbents in primary or general elections.
In 2014, Dave Brat defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia’s Republican primary. Similarly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) defeated Joe Crowley, a longtime representative and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, in a primary election in 2018.
Most recently, Bernie Moreno defeated longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio in 2024. In each example, the incumbent outspent his challenger by several multiples.
The fact that the public holds Congress and its members in such low esteem — and yet continues to reelect incumbents at very high rates — may be more of a product of a lack of civic engagement on the part of voters, or the sheer diversity of opinion and interest in the American public.
The difficulty of denying an incumbent reelection may simply be that voters must consider the potential benefit of electing a new representative versus the fact that they will have to accrue the expertise, relationships and skills necessary for effective lawmaking — capabilities that an incumbent is further along in developing.
The public’s frustration with Congress is understandable. Congress today often takes a secondary role to the executive branch, allowing the executive to make overbroad interpretations of existing law instead of passing new legislation.
But the problems ailing our national legislature and their causes are wide-ranging and complex. Effectively addressing them requires a variety of solutions, including increasing staffing in the legislative branch, election reform and procedural reform.
Term limits, whatever their ostensible charms, are a mistake that will leave Congress even weaker and more hapless.
Jaehun Lee is a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute. This piece previously appeared in The Hill.
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