Three Decades of the Term Limits Movement

For decades, public opinion has strongly supported term limits for legislators. The latest poll result on the topic is from 2024:

But, as Republican Congressman Bob Inglis of South Carolina quipped, “Asking an incumbent member of Congress to vote for term limits is a bit like asking a chicken to vote for Colonel Sanders.”*

The term limits movement

To overcome incumbents’ resistance, supporters of term limits orchestrated numerous state ballot initiatives in the 1990s. Organizers were typically outsider conservative organizations, inspired by the success of earlier “tax revolt” ballot initiatives that took their cases directly to voters.

In each state, term limits were proposed for the state’s legislators, both in the statehouse and U.S. Congress. Organizers would first gather the requisite number of signatures to get on the general-election ballot. Then—in almost every case—they’d win in the election, attracting votes from across the political spectrum.

By mid-1995, the term-limits movement had notched wins in 23 states (21 by ballot initiatives and two by votes in state legislatures). But then the Supreme Court decision U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton came down. It ruled that states could not impose term limits on their U.S. Congress members, but it allowed states to continue term-limiting their state-level legislators.

After that, some state Supreme Courts voided term limits for their state legislators. A few additional states passed term limits at the state level, and a few others repealed term limits. Still others had follow-on ballot propositions to loosen term limits, typically put on the ballot by the legislature, not citizens. After all these changes, 16 states had state-level term limits for legislators, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ last compilation in August 2023.

Attempts at a constitutional convention

Today, the term limits movement continues. U.S. Term Limits (USTL), the organization that lost in the Thornton decision, is pursuing a constitutional amendment for term limits in the U.S. Congress. It is doing so with a creative twist: by going through state legislatures: If two-thirds of state legislatures (at least 34) call for a constitutional convention, Congress must call one. At the convention, state delegates would meet to draft the proposed amendment. Then three-fourths of the states (38) would need to ratify it. The key thing to note is, Congress itself would never vote on the amendment’s substance.

Going the states-only route to a constitutional amendment has never been successfully completed. The normal route is for Congress to originate an amendment and for the states to ratify. However, a few attempts at a constitutional convention have gotten enough momentum that Congress stepped in to initiate the desired amendment, heading off the uncertainties of a convention. This is what USTL expects to happen if its Term Limits Convention initiative can get close to the 34-state threshold.

USTL currently has twelve states on board. This has worked because the state legislators have been asked to support congressional term limits, not term limits on themselves. (Of the twelve, five states’ legislatures have term limits; four were imposed by citizens’ ballot initiatives, not by legislators term-limiting themselves.)

There is a separate initiative, the Convention of States, for a constitutional convention that has multiple components, term limits being one. It has 19 states on board but will be more complex to complete legally and logistically due to its multi-agenda nature.

Both USTL’s single-agenda initiative and the Convention of States’ multi-agenda initiative have only red and purple states on board. Unless they can find a way to get blue states on board, or the nation’s state-power balance shifts substantially further red, the threshold of 34 will be out of reach.

Targeting a Supreme Court reversal

USTL is also trying to get Thornton overturned, again via creative means. In 2024, USTL funded a successful ballot proposition in North Dakota that enacted age limits on candidates for North Dakota’s seats in Congress. The proposition was designed to violate Thornton, albeit with age limits rather than term limits. The goal is to use it for a Supreme Court case that might reverse Thornton.

The logic of reversal would necessarily cover both age limits and term limits. Compared to 1995, the court is more sympathetic to states-rights claims. The only justice that remains from the original Thornton 5-4 decision is Clarence Thomas, author of the dissenting opinion. He wrote, “Nothing in the Constitution deprives the people of each State of the power to prescribe eligibility requirements for the candidates who seek to represent them in Congress.”

It’s speculative when and if a case could reach the Supreme Court. And while today’s Court is more receptive to states’ rights arguments than in 1995, overturning Thornton would mean allowing each state to impose its own eligibility rules for the same national offices—a patchwork system that the justices may hesitate to unleash.

Thirty years on

Thirty years ago, the term limits movement creatively used citizens’ ballot initiatives to route around legislators’ reluctance to term-limit themselves. After the setback of Thornton, the movement continued experimenting with new legal theories, ballot initiatives, and state-level strategies. Whether these efforts will lead to a new breakthrough—or whether term limits will remain confined to a minority of state legislatures—remains to be seen. But the constant that has been there all along, broad public-opinion support, shows no sign of changing.

P.S. I’ve focused on the term limits movement as a response to consistent public opinion in favor of term limits. It’s a separate topic whether term limits actually have the benefits people assume. The academic research leans negative on term limits, all things considered.

____

* If you research term limits on the web, you will likely find Rep. Inglis’ quote about chickens and Colonel Sanders. However, as of September 2025, every time it appeared, it was either not sourced or was linked to a secondary source, like a collection of quotes, which itself did not source the quote. Because it was bugging me, I tracked down Inglis. He confirmed he used the quote regularly in his 1992 campaign. I later found it attributed directly to him in a 1994 Wall Street Journal article that, as of this writing, was not available on the public web: Calmes, Jackie. “Even with new GOP majorities in both houses, term limits face likely doom in next Congress.” Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Nov 1994: PAGE A20. (May Google index this so others similarly bugged can find the answer.)