Now we have declining deficits that make the fiscal position of the United States the envy of the world and good prospects for balancing the budget in the not distant future. Seniority is dwarfed by party and ideology in shaping spending decisions by members of Congress. The argument that overspending by government is a direct result of careerism in Congress always rested on an exceedingly weak evidentiary base. Those who embraced term limits as a last desperate attempt to cope with crushing budget deficits also have reason to reconsider their position. No longer do we speak of one-party dominance of either branch of government. The two major political parties are now more competitive at the presidential and congressional levels than at any other time in recent decades. Incumbent reelection rates and margins of victory in 1992, 1994, and 1996 were low enough to encourage future challengers and put fear in the hearts of members of the Senate and House who seek reelection. The last election also saw a continuation of the trend toward more competitive congressional elections. Almost two-thirds of the members of the House were first elected in the 1990s 40 of the 100 senators are in their first term (one of whom, with only two years of experience in the Senate, already chairs a major committee). The rapid pace of membership turnover in the Congress continued unabated in 1996, dispelling any notion of a “permanent” Congress. Nothing has happened in the world of politics since that vote to strengthen the case for limiting terms. The House provided backers of the term limit amendment a full debate and vote on the floor the intellectual force of the opposition, led by the redoubtable chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, provided a compelling, principled rationale for rejecting the amendment. Today the debate over legislative term limits has even less urgency and plausibility than it did two years ago. The political marketplace operated efficiently in 1994, without arbitrary limits built into the Constitution, to accelerate membership turnover, end one-party dominance of the House of Representatives, and limit the automatic advantages of seniority. I noted that it would be a supreme irony if term limits were adopted at the very moment that Republicans had finally grasped the reins of power in Congress. I returned on Februto argue that the results of the 1994 elections strongly supported the position that term limits are neither necessary nor desirable for the healthy functioning of our democratic system. Whatever evil term limits were designed to counter-careerism, incumbency advantage, unaccountable power, or overspending-the evidence suggested that the actual consequences were likely to be far different and potentially harmful to our political system. In my initial testimony on Novem(a revised version of which was published as “Congressional Term Limits: A Bad Idea Whose Time Should Never Come,” in The Politics and Law of Term Limits, Cato Institute, 1994), I concluded that term limitation is a false panacea, a slam-dunk approach to political reform that offers little beyond emotional release of pent-up frustrations with the performance of the economic and political system. This is the third time I have been asked by this committee to review and assess the case for term limits. Thank you for inviting me to testify on the issue of congressional term limits and specifically on the wisdom of amending the Constitution to limit the number of terms members may serve in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
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