In the politics of the United States, term limits restrict the number of terms an officeholder may serve. At the federal level, the president can be elected to at most two four-year terms, per the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution which came into force on February 27, 1951 after four years of deliberations. Some state government offices are also term-limited, including executive, legislative, and judicial offices. Analogous measures exist at the city and county level across the U.S., though many details involving local governments in that country vary depending on the location.
Term limits are also called rotation in office. That terminology is often associated with Founding Father and later president Thomas Jefferson given his use of it in his political arguments.
Historical background
Constitution Term limits date back to the American Revolution and before that, to the democracies and republics of Antiquity. The Council of 500 in ancient Athens rotated its entire membership annually, as did the ephorate in ancient Sparta.
The Roman Republic featured a system of elected magistrates—tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls—who served a single term of one year, with re-election to the same magistracy forbidden for ten years (see cursus honorum). According to historian Garrett G. Fagan, office holding in the Roman Republic was based on "limited tenure of office" which ensured that "authority circulated frequently", helping to prevent corruption. Another benefit of the or run of offices was to bring the "most experienced" politicians to the upper echelons of power-holding in the ancient republic. Many of the founders of the United States were educated in the classics, and quite familiar with rotation in the office during antiquity. The debates of that day reveal a desire to study and profit from the object lessons offered by ancient democracy.
Prior to independence, several colonies had already experimented with term limits. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut of 1639, for example, prohibited the colonial governor from serving consecutive terms by setting terms at one year's length, and holding "that no person be chosen Governor above once in two years." Shortly after independence, the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 set maximum service in the Pennsylvania General Assembly at "four years in seven." Benjamin Franklin's influence is seen not only in that he chaired the constitutional convention which drafted the Pennsylvania constitution, but also because it included, virtually unchanged, Franklin's earlier proposals on executive rotation. Pennsylvania's plural executive was composed of twelve citizens elected for the term of three years, followed by a mandatory vacation of four years. On Franklin's plan of 1775, see
The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781, established term limits for the delegates of the Continental Congress, mandating in Article V that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years."
On October 2, 1789, the Continental Congress appointed a committee of thirteen to examine forms of government for the impending union of the states. Among the proposals was that from the state of Virginia, written by Thomas Jefferson, urging a limitation of tenure, "to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office the members of the Continental Congress." The committee made recommendations, which as regards congressional term limits were incorporated unchanged into the Articles of Confederation (1781–1789). The fifth Article stated that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate [to the continental congress] for more than three years in any term of six years."
Term limits in the Constitution Unlike the Articles of Confederation, the federal constitution convention at Philadelphia omitted term limits from the U.S. Constitution of 1789. At the convention, some delegates spoke passionately against term limits; such as Rufus King, who said "that he who has proved himself to be most fit for an Office, ought not to be excluded by the constitution from holding it." The Electoral College, it was believed by some delegates at the convention, could have a role to play in limiting unfit officers from continuing.
When the states ratified the Constitution (1787–88), several leading statesmen regarded the lack of mandatory limits to tenure as a dangerous defect, especially, they thought, as regards the presidency and the Senate. Richard Henry Lee viewed the absence of legal limits to tenure, together with certain other features of the Constitution, as "most highly and dangerously oligarchic.". See also ; Both Jefferson. See also for Jefferson's definition of rotation in office. and George Mason advised limits on re-election to the Senate and to the Presidency, because, said Mason, "nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation." Historian Mercy Otis Warren warned, "there is no provision for a rotation, nor anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well-timed bribery, will probably be done."
Presidential term limits 1789–1952 Korzi says George Washington did not set the informal precedent for a two-term limit for the Presidency. He only meant he was too worn out to personally continue in office. It was Thomas Jefferson who made it a principle in 1808. He made many statements calling for term limits in one form or another.
The two-term limit tradition was maintained unofficially for 132 years. It was unsuccessfully challenged by Ulysses S. Grant in 1880, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, and Woodrow Wilson in 1920. Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully ran for a third term in 1940, citing the outbreak of World War II. The two Roosevelts are the only presidents to run for a third term in a general election; Grant and Wilson aimed to do so but failed to gain their parties' nominations. Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected in 1944 for a fourth term amidst the United States' engagement in World War II but died shortly afterwards in office. Shortly after the 1946 mid-term elections, Republicans took control of both house and the senate and very soon after the House of Representatives proposed joint Resolution 27, calling a set limit of two terms each containing four years for all future presidents. After some revisions by the senate, the approved amendment was sent out to the states for ratification on March 21, 1947. Soon after the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted and ratified in 1951, formally establishing in law the two-term limit — though it did not apply to the incumbent Harry S. Truman, Franklin Roosevelt's successor. Truman declined to run for a third term in 1952.
The fact that "perpetuity in office" was not approached until the 20th century is due in part to the influence of rotation in office as a popular 19th-century concept. "Ideas are, in truth, forces," and rotation in office enjoyed such normative support, especially at the local level, that it altered political reality.. The quotation is from Henry James, the biographer.
During the American Civil War, the Confederate Constitution limited its president to one six-year term. Only Jefferson Davis served as Confederate president, but he did not complete a full term in office before surrendering to the Union.
Era of incumbency The practice of nomination rotation for the House of Representatives began to decline after the Civil War. It took a generation or so before the direct primary system, civil service reforms, and the ethic of professionalism worked to eliminate rotation in office as a common political practice. By the turn of the 20th century the era of incumbency was coming into full swing.
A total of eight presidents served two full terms and declined a third. Three presidents served one full term and refused a second. After World War II, however, an officeholder class had developed to the point that congressional tenure rivaled that of the U.S. Supreme Court, where tenure is for life.
Term limits movement A movement in favor of term limits took hold in the early 1990s, and reached its apex in 1992 to 1994, a period when seventeen states enacted term limits through state legislation or state constitutional amendments.John M. Carey, Richard G. Niemi & Lynda W. Powell, Term Limits in State Legislatures (University of Michigan Press: 2009), pp. 1–2.
Many of the laws enacted limited terms for both the state legislature and in the state's delegation to Congress. As they pertain to Congress, these laws were struck down as unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995), in which the court ruled, on a 5–4 vote, that state governments cannot limit the terms of members of the national government.U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).
Where rotation in the legislative branch has withstood court challenges, term limits continue to garner popular support. As of 2002, the advocacy group "U.S. Term Limits" found that in the seventeen states where state legislators served in rotation, public support for term limits ranged from 60 to 78 percent.
Federal term limits
+ Term limits by federal office Office Restrictions President Limited to being elected to a total of two four-year terms. If a vice president becomes president by succession and completes more than two years of said former president's unfinished term, they may be elected in their own right only once. A vice president who becomes president by succession and serves less than two years of their predecessor's term may be elected to two more four-year terms. Vice president Unlimited four-year terms House of Representatives Unlimited two-year terms Senate Unlimited six-year terms Supreme Court and lower courts No term limits, appointed to serve "during good Behaviour" (but can be impeached and removed from office for "high Crimes and Misdemeanors"). In practice a judge or justice serves until death or resignation.
Term limits at the federal level are restricted to the executive branch and some agencies. Judicial appointments at the federal level are made for life and are not subject to election or to term limits. The U.S. Congress remains (since the Thornton decision of 1995) without electoral limits.
President George Washington's decision in 1796 not to run for a third term has often been given credit as the start of a tradition that no president should ever run for a third term. Washington wanted to retire when his first term ended in 1792, but all his advisors begged him to stand for re-election. By 1796, however, he insisted on retiring, as he felt exhausted and disgusted by virulent personal attacks on his integrity. His Farewell Address very briefly mentioned why he would not run for a third term and goes on to give a great deal of political advice, but it does not mention term limits. After his death, his refusal to run was explained in terms of a "no-third-tradition." argues, "The argument for term limits has a solid and respectable pedigree. Contrary to popular belief, however, that pedigree does not begin with George Washington." The second president, John Adams, lost re-election in 1800 to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson himself declined re-election to a third term, attributing the precedent to Washington.