U.S. Senate votes down DeMint term limits resolution 24-75

It was a clear defeat, and a predictable one, but the fact the vote was held at all was a clear victory in bringing this issue back to the fore.

Recent uproar about insider trading by Congress members and their staffs led to a vote on the so-called STOCK Act to explicitly prohibit such activity. The STOCK Act easily passed the Senate and a House version passed soon after. But the attention given to Congressional soft corruption invited amendments to deal with more fundamental issues such as earmarking and, yes, Congressional term limits.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), chief sponsor of the Congressional term limits amendment bill, used this opportunity to add a "Sense of the Senate" amendment calling for a vote on whether Congressional terms should be limited. The amendment failed 24-75 on Feb. 2.

Check to see how your Senator voted here.

The breakdown of the votes is interesting. Note that three-quarters of the Senate opposes term limits. This is a near mirror image of the public, three-quarters (or more) of which support term limits in polls and at ballot boxes. This clearly shows how opposite the interests of incumbent politicians as a class are from the electorate. It is this class interest that makes institutional protections of voters such as term limits so important.

Currently, U.S. Term Limits is approaching all the YEA voters and urging them to walk the talk. Only about a third of those who voted for DeMint's Sense of the Senate resolution are cosponsors of his Term Limits for All amendment bill.

Clearly, we have a lot of work to do. But with polling on term limits at all-time highs, term limits bills in both Houses of Congress, 99 signatories on the USTL Congressional term limits pledge, a vote on the Senate Floor and even a rival bill being floated to sabotage term limits in the House, you can see things are moving on this issue.

If you haven't yet, be sure to sign the USTL online petition calling for Congressional term limits here. Let Congress know how you would have voted on that Senate resolution!

DeMint bill is back -- with 10 cosponsors!

For the first time in over a decade, term limits has reemerged as a major issue in Washington DC. Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) reintroduced his amendment for Congressional term limits -- this time with 10 cosponsors on day one! -- and a House companion is expected to be introduced imminently.

This shot across the bow of Washington's entrenched incumbency is occurring in an environment where some 78 percent of Americans are telling pollsters they want Congressional term limits. It is a bipartisan call, with 84 percent Republican support and 74 from both Democrats and independents.

Americans laughed derisively at Congress after a week of political rodeo in which the parties locked horns, even threatening to shut down the government, over less than $1 billion in budget cuts, according to the Government Accounting Office.

In a body based on seniority in which special interest-backed incumbents almost never lose elections, what else could be expected? Sure, they put on a good show for their respective bases by battling each other at the margins, but in the end the leadership in both parties and in the House and Senate have the same job: they have to keep their big special interest constituencies on the government dole.

The budget battle underscores the need for institutional reform, for term limits. And the DeMint bill is real term limits, mandating a maximum three consecutive terms in the House and two in the Senate. The leadership of both parties and their lap dogs in the media will try to ignore this bill. We cannot let them.

Please take action today:

1) Sign the online petition here supporting the DeMint 3/2 term limits bill.

2) Forward a link to this page to everyone you know.

3) Support U.S. Term Limits with a financial contribution to help promote the bill.

As cosponsor Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) argued in an earlier post on this blog, the time is now for term limits. Let's push this issue to the top of our agendas and take advantage of an opportunity to change Washington forever.

The U.S. Term Limits Amendment Pledge: An action plan for the 2010 election

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The primaries are over and now we're in the final stretch into the November election. All the momentum is riding with those calling for real change. But how can we make sure we are electing candidates who are serious about changing Washington and not just telling us what we want to hear? How can we hold them accountable once they win?

Here's how:

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Today, U.S. Term Limits mailed out the last of 996 packages to every major party Congressional candidate in the country -- House and Senate, incumbent and challenger. In it is a letter from me and a pledge for the candidate to sign. The pledge commits the signer to cosponsor and vote for a constitutional amendment to limit Congressional terms to three in the House and two in the Senate.

Let's get as many candidates as possible to sign this pledge before election day! Then, U.S. Term Limits will follow up and make sure the signers who won live up to their word.

Think about the power of this simple project. After November, we can expect to have genuine term limits bills in both houses of Congress with a growing list of cosponsors. Then we can move on to the next step of the plan to get a vote on a real term limits amendment before 2012.

Please, right now, go to the new pledge website* and find out if your local Congressional candidates have signed the pledge. If not, call or email them and ask them to.

At every opportunity, particularly in public forums, ask your local Congressional candidates -- incumbents and challengers -- if they support term limits and, if they say yes, ask them if they have signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge. History tells us if they won't sign, they don't really support term limits.

This is a big project that necessarily must be accomplished in a short period of time. We have big up-front costs of production, mailing and promotion. Please also go here and make a financial contribution to U.S. Term Limits to help pay for this important project.

Friends, this is it. With the skyrocketing polling on term limits, plummeting Congressional approval ratings and a real live term limits amendment bill in the Senate, never have the stars been so aligned to make this possible. We have the opportunity, let's take it.

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*The website will be live the week of Sept. 26.

TERM LIMITS FOR ALL amendment introduced!

It's official. Sen. Jim DeMint has introduced a bill to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit the terms of the U.S. Congress.

If the proposal becomes law, Senators will be limited to two terms (12 years) and Representatives will be limited to three (six years). The text of the bill and amendment can be found here.

The amendment is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). As an amendment to the Constitution, it would require a two-thirds majority vote approval in the House and Senate and must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

"Americans know real change in Washington will never happen until we end the era of permanent politicians," said Senator DeMint. "As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power. I have come to realize that if we want to change the policies coming out of Congress, we must change the process itself. Over the last 20 years, Washington politicians have been reelected about 90% of the time because the system is heavily tilted in favor of incumbents. If we really want to put an end to business as usual, we’ve got to have new leaders coming to Washington instead of rearranging the deck chairs as the ship goes down.”

He's right. And now we have some work to do.

First, please call your Senator and ask him or her to become a cosponsor of this amendment. Second, please sign our on-line petition to show your support for Sen. DeMint's amendment. Third, send around the petition link to your friends and family and urge them to sign the petition. Fourth, write a letter to the editor announcing the bill and your support of it. Be sure to include how your Senators stand on the issue.

Our most recent polling shows 83% of Americans support term limits. Hence, this should be a done deal. But our system is broken. This amendment is a big step toward fixing it.

BREAKING NEWS: Sen. DeMint to drop term limits bill!

Great news: Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) will soon be launching a Constitutional amendment bill to limit terms of the U.S. Congress!

I am often asked by reporters and talk radio hosts what it would take to achieve Congressional term limits. It is a big project and will take the right conditions to get the job done.

First, I say, we need the people on our side. Check.

Second, we need historically low approval ratings on Congress. Check.

Third, we need political leadership. Check?

Yes, it looks we finally have that too. The remarks below are excerpted from U.S. Senator Jim DeMint’s podcast of October 22, 2009. Senator DeMint, who voluntarily limited his tenure in the House of Representatives to three terms, is announcing the imminent launch of a bill to Constitutionally limit terms.

Take it away, Sen. DeMint:

"The longer I stay in Washington, the more I have come to realize that the problem in the federal government isn't just the people...it’s the process.

"The system itself is so much more powerful than either party or interest group, let alone one president or congressional leader. In Washington, the rules of the game are rigged—in favor of bigger government, higher taxes, more debt, and the time-honored system of political back-scratching of 'go along to get along.

"The fact is, party doesn’t matter when it comes to reform. If you want to change the policies, you have to change the process. That’s why in the next few weeks I will introduce a new constitutional amendment to limit members of the House of Representatives to three terms (which is six years), and members of the Senate to two terms (which is twelve years).

"As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork—in short, amassing their own power. Since all that power is going to disappear in a few years anyway, term-limited legislators will be far less likely to make compromises with the system.

"Opponents of term limits say that the nation needs wise and seasoned leaders to lead the nation through crises and find consensus on difficult issues. Well, that’s exactly what we’ve got now.... How do you think it’s working out for us? It wasn’t the People who gave us a 12-trillion dollar debt, trillion-dollar deficits, 100-trillion-dollar long term shortfall in Social Security and Medicare, the Wall Street and auto bailouts, and the health care takeover. It was those wise and seasoned leaders, who enjoy lives of privilege almost wholly immune from the consequences of their policy failures.

"Term limits are not enough, of course. I hope my amendment will eventually be ratified, and then followed by other structural reforms to make our public institutions more transparent and accountable. But term limits are a good start. Because if we really want reform, we all know it’s not enough just to change the congressmen—we have to change Congress itself."

The fourth thing we need to win is for grass roots activists to raise such a clamor that this bill cannot be ignored and Congress members are afraid to vote against it.

So please, right now, go to the U.S. Terms Limits website and sign the on-line petition reiterating Sen. DeMint's call for term limits. And send around the link to all your friends and associates of all political persuasions.

If not now, when?