Freedom-Fighters Forum

By William J. Dell – 13 April 2010

I am personally in favor of Term Limits on the members of Congress much like the term limit on the President. The difficulty, as you will read below, is having two-thirds of the House and Senate voting for them. It is difficult to get ANY politician to vote to end their career after twelve years. It might happen if we were to clean house in November of the Progressive incumbents who desire to retain power and replace the Constitutional Republic with a Welfare Socialist State.

In the elections of 1994, part of the Contract on America was to pass legislation setting term limits in Congress. After winning the majority, they brought a constitutional amendment to the House floor that limited members of the Senate to two six-year terms and members of the House to six two-year terms. Because the Republicans held 230 seats in the House, they were able to get a simple majority. However, constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority, or 290 votes, and the votes to restrict term limits in Congress fell short of that number by 60 votes.

In May of 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against term limits in Congress in the case of U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton. By a 5-4 vote, the justices found that states could not impose term limits in Congress. Since Congress had been unable to muster the required two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional amendment to pass, the matter did not come up in Congress again.

After the Supreme Court ruling, many Representatives made non-binding pledges to limit their own terms. Some of those Representatives stood by their word and left Congress, while others broke their pledges and continued to run for re-election.

Most Americans generally favor congressional term limits. A July 2003 Wall Street Journal poll found that two-thirds of Americans believed that term limits in Congress was a positive idea.

The clock is running on every true American’s ability to save the Constitutional Republic given us by the Founding Fathers. It is 205 days until the mid-term elections of 2010. Will you VOTE for the Republic or for more “CHANGE” that NO TRUE AMERICAN wants. We need to determine the position of the candidates on Term Limits.