With Term Limits Gone, What Now? : National campaign financing reform could avoid the need for a constitutional amendment

Twenty-three states, our own among them, have enacted laws to limit the terms of their representatives and senators in Congress. A Supreme Court cleanly split between its moderate and conservative wings has now held in a 5-4 decision that such laws are unconstitutional. The Constitution’s framers, wrote Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority, intended that “neither Congress nor the states should possess the power to supplement the exclusive qualifications set forth in [the Constitution’s] text.” If congressional terms are to be limited, the Constitution itself must be amended, just as it was amended in 1951 to say that a person could be elected to the presidency only twice.

The court has made the right decision. It’s right, not least, because to let each state set the terms for its congressional delegation would be to pave the way for a drastic upsetting of the legislative balance of power. Congress still treats seniority as measured by length of service as more or less sacrosanct. Seniority, most notably in the assignment of committee chairmanships, equates with legislative power. To allow 50 disparate approaches to term limits, with some states requiring a fairly frequent turnover in their congressional delegations while others imposed no limits at all, would quickly lead to an enormous distortion in how legislative power is distributed.

The court majority recognized that congressional term limits, “like any other qualification for office,” unquestionably restrict voters’ rights. But term limits also “may provide for the infusion of fresh ideas and new perspectives,” something our legislative process would clearly benefit from.

Public support for term limits is unmistakable and growing, and for valid reasons. However talented and dedicated many members of Congress may be, democracy in the long run simply is not well served by vesting legislative power in a professional class of politicians. It’s often argued that elections themselves are the surest way to limit congressional terms. Certainly they can be, as many Democratic incumbents learned last November. But in the longer span of modern electoral history, last year’s results stand out as an anomaly. Until last year, election after election demonstrated the advantages of incumbency, not least because incumbents, with power to wield and favors to grant, find it much easier to raise campaign money. And money, sadly, to a great degree remains determinative in many elections.

There’s clearly a compelling need, finally, to get on with serious and ungimmicky reforms of the nation’s campaign finance laws. If campaign financing laws cannot be corrected, then a constitutional amendment may be inevitable.