A New Defense of State-Imposed Congressional Term Limits

Do states have the authority to limit the legislative terms of their members of Congress? Up until very recently this question was merely hypothetical, pondered by those with the luxury to ask and develop answers to an assortment of constitutional “what if's.” However, the success of the term limitation movement across the nation has moved this hypothetical question to the center stage of relevant constitutional debate. Voters in fifteen states, including California, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, have now approved initiatives to limit the number of terms served by their members of Congress. In nine other states term limit advocates are actively gathering signatures to place similar initiatives on the ballot in 1994, some for the second time. By 1995, as many as 24 states could have adopted initiatives to limit congressional terms. In the remaining states activists continue to lobby for legislation to limit the terms of state and federal legislators. Since a state's authority to impose term limits on members of Congress is of questionable constitutionality, it is likely many of these initiatives will end up in litigation (see Barnicle 1992; Corwin 1991; Greenberger 1991; and Kovacevich 1992). Lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of state-imposed term limits on members of Congress have already been filed and dismissed in Missouri and Florida. Legal action is pending in Nebraska and in the state of Washington where House Speaker Tom Foley has teamed up with the League of Women Voters to challenge the constitutionality of that state's term limitation initiative. The legal strategy against term limits has succeeded in overturning one initiative.