Ruling Puts Term Limit Drive in Doubt

The Supreme Court’s rejection of state-imposed federal term limits, coming on the heels of the House defeat of a constitutional amendment to impose limits on members of Congress, leaves advocates of such change with only one likely alternative: elect a more sympathetic Congress.

Term limit proponents pledge to make it a major issue in the 1996 election and say that their twin defeats in Congress and the court this year will galvanize their troops.

“The term limits movement will be reinvigorated,” said Eddie Mahe Jr., a Republican political consultant. “Those people who voted against term limits will have a lot of explaining to do.”

But opponents said that the decisive court ruling is the death knell of the term limits movement.

“No one’s driven a stake through its heart yet, but I don’t expect it to be a major issue,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

It is not clear how potent a political issue term limits will be in an election likely to be dominated by presidential politics and by a referendum on the changes wrought by the GOP-dominated Congress.

The result is an uncertain future for the issue, which was one of the most popular pledges in the GOP’s “contract with America.” Polls show stratospheric levels of support for term limits, and 23 states had adopted them for their members of Congress.

But despite that popularity, the House in March rejected by wide margins four different constitutional amendments to limit congressional terms. Even the proposal that came closest to passing fell 63 votes short of the 290 votes--a two-thirds majority--needed to pass a proposed constitutional amendment.

With the issue all but dead as a legislative matter this year, advocates of term limits are still hoping to turn it into a winning political issue and transform the legislative climate by defeating term limit opponents.

“We’re now going to have to go through an election cycle before we can achieve our goal,” said Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.).

U.S. Term Limits, a lobbying group, plans to turn up political pressure on incumbents through state initiatives requiring candidates to say where they stand on term limits and to have their position disclosed on the ballot. It’s a technique borrowed from the early 20th-Century fight for a constitutional amendment providing for the direct election of U.S. senators, who previously were elected by state legislatures.

Republicans are hoping to turn the term limits issue to their partisan advantage because more Democrats than Republicans voted against the constitutional amendment. Seeking to pin blame on the Democrats, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has said that the term limits constitutional amendment will be the first bill introduced in the next Congress if the GOP retains control.

But some term limits advocates acknowledge that they face obstacles to parlaying the issue into real electoral gains. Many incumbents--including senior Republicans such as Judiciary Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.)--have openly opposed term limits for years and have still been easily reelected.

“A lot of folks who are against term limits are very much entrenched,” conceded Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.), a leading term limits advocate.

And while support for term limits may be wide, it is not necessarily very deep. Indeed, McCollum acknowledged that during the run-up to House debate on term limits, he was disappointed that the “grass-roots rallying cry” for the constitutional amendment did not get stronger.

In the wake of the House defeat, term limits proponents were preparing to propose a statute--which, unlike a constitutional amendment, could be passed by a simple majority--to authorize states to set limits for their own members of Congress.

That fallback strategy was aborted by the Supreme Court decision, which, with almost indisputable clarity, said that the only way congressional terms can be limited is by constitutional amendment.

The Senate is still planning to vote on term limits, possibly before Congress begins its August recess. But Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.), a leading advocate of term limits, conceded Monday that he lacks the votes to pass a constitutional amendment.

Brown said that he also will push for a vote on a law that would take another, circuitous route to limiting congressional terms. His idea is to expand on the state residency requirement in the Constitution, by passing a law that would bar people from running for the House or Senate if they were absent from their home state for 180 days a year for 12 consecutive years.

But other analysts--including other term limits advocates--said that the proposal is unworkable and likely to be thrown out by the court as a blatant, unconstitutional effort to circumvent their ruling.

“I don’t believe the Supreme Court decision leaves that door open,” said McCollum.

About the only other alternative for the term limit movement is to call for a constitutional convention. That can be done if two-thirds of the states petition Congress for a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution. But that has never happened and term limits advocates so far have not seriously entertained it.

The political hopes of term limits advocates are personified by former House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), who lost his bid for reelection after filing a lawsuit challenging Washington state’s term limits.

In the wake of Monday’s Supreme Court decision, Foley confidently proclaimed the term limit movement “dead.” But his adversaries scoffed.

“He’s speaking from the grave,” said Cleta Mitchell, director of the Term Limits Legal Institute. “I think term limits are in better shape politically than Tom Foley.”