President-elect Donald Trump captured the imagination of many Americans and consolidated support from them when he promised during the campaign that he would " Drain the Swamp" in Washington and shake things up. One of his proposed reforms to achieve such a lofty and provocative goal was to institute term limits for Congress through constitutional amendment. Trump is less than three weeks away from formally taking over the White House but some of his allies are determined to get the ball rolling, so to speak, on legislating term limits as Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz and Florida Rep. Ron De Santis introduced this week constitutional amendment that aims to make term limits a reality.
Cruz said that imposing term limits is one way to fix the system since " DC is broken". The Republican senator underscored that the election victory of Trump meant the American people gave him the mandate and their consent to push and implement needed reforms. Cruz also acknowledged Trump's commitment to put government back to work for the American people. In fact, he thinks it is well past time to end cronyism and deceit that " has transformed Washington into a graveyard of good intentions".
Should the proposal be passed, senators would be limited to two terms for a total of twelve years in service, while representatives would be limited to three terms, a total of six years in congress. This is the same proposal of Trump during the campaign, though it was not established now whether the incoming President prodded Cruz and De Santis to introduce the necessary constitutional amendments to pave for term limits legislation, or it was purely the senators' initiative.
Advocates for term limits are upbeat on the matter. U.S. Term Limits President Philip Blumel said that incoming President Trump, Speaker Ryan and the huge majority of Americans are united in demanding term limits. Blumel is urging Congress to listen and pass the Cruz-De Santis amendment immediately.
A survey by Rasmussen Reports in October last year found that three quarters of Americans overwhelmingly support implementing term limits, while only 13% oppose it.
Cruz has supported other worthy political process reforms bills including ending super PACs, lifting caps on individual contributions and centralizing the campaign finance system.
