Talk:Term limits in the United States

Pros and cons
Hello, I ask for pros and cons to term limits for senators and representaives, or just plain Congressmen! The answers you give me are essential, so answer honestly and ASAP!!!!! Signed: BlueCaper (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've copied your question to Reference_desk/Humanities (in a week it will be archived to Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2008_March_4) —Random832 20:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Random 832! I am starting to find answers off of Useless-knowledge.com, but they worded it so abstrusely and technically that I cannot understand any of it. So I think you really helped me on this one. I appreciate it much! BlueCaper (talk) 21:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * ARGUMENTS PRO and CON (condensed)
 * Google: argument term limit --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's a couple leads from respected institutions:
 * Cato Institute
 * Cato Institute again
 * Summaries of court opinions on term limits
 * Washington Post resource list
 * "Term limits do little to diversify legislatures"
 * Good luck!--M @ r ē ino 21:57, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

What? "In June 1776, the Continental Congress"
This needs to be clarified: In June 1776, 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...."[1] 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."[2]

If it's June 1776 you're talking about the Second Continental Congress, but the topic sounds like something that was discussed at the First Continental Congress. In any case the paragraph is ambiguous. I think the fear @ the time was that holders of office might resemble a King. --TMH (talk) 08:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Good Behaviour (with a u)
If we're going to cite and quote the United States Constitution, then we need to cite and quote what it actually says. It says "Behaviour" (capital "B" and with a "u"). Please don't change the spelling unless you're going to eliminate the quotation or find a different source for the text of the Constitution that agrees with your spelling. Thanks! 67.239.64.253 (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposed term limits
I removed the section on proposed term limits - there are going to be a lot of proposals, and the section is fairly clearly not being maintained (missing several recent attempts on introducing term limits), so I just don't see its usefulness. If there's one or two particularly notable efforts (that had an effect on more than one state), perhaps they'd be worthy of note, but not a general section. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 15:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

What about gubernatorial succession
The article does not provide some information upon gubernatorial succession and term limits. At the federal level, a vice president who succeeds the presidency could be elected twice and serve a total of ten years if less than two years remain of the term he has to complete. Is there the same rule in the states, especially in those states with two terms as total limit (like California). Could Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (CA) be elected in 2014 and 2018 would he succeed the governorship next week (when more than two years of Jerry Brown’s term passed)? --91.103.112.54 (talk) 09:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Term Limits in the Constitution
largely because of grassroots support for the principle of rotation, rapid turnover in Congress prevailed Sounds good but how do we know this? Perhaps a citation is needed. Josephdurnal (talk) 14:02, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Year typo?
"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".[4] The committee made recommendations, which as regards congressional term limits were incorporated unchanged into the Articles of Confederation (1781–89)."

The way I read this, the committee was making suggestions about the (then new) Articles of Confederation. If this is the case, then it does not make sense for it to have taken place in 1789 (when the Articles had since been replaced by the Constitution. Either the date is wrong, or the committee was not writing about the Articles of Confederation. Does anyone know which it is, and (if it is the former) what the correct date would be? Nathaniel Greene (talk) 23:10, 29 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Good question. Good you pointed this out. I'll try to look into this when I have time but I bet there are more knowledgeable folks who could weigh in here?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:49, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Missing Effects section, NPOV problem
This article is almost entirely positive about term limits and spends quite some time discussing all the bad things that are avoided by having term limits. However, the article does mention that some states have repealed their term limits, so it seems that there are some disadvantages as well (at least according to those states!). The article would benefit by having a section on the effects of term limits that were introduced and the reasoning of the states that abolished them. KarlFrei (talk) 12:22, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

This still seems to be a problem - most of the article is pro-term limits, except for the end of the lead, and the final section. The anti-term limits arguments should be better incorporated, and be placed with the pro-term limit arguments so they can adequately respond to each other. 73.138.3.167 (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Correction to the Impact section.
The Impact section states that legislative term limits reduces voter turn out, citing this 2007 article that found such. However, a 2017 article directly contradicts this claim. I think the section should be amended to reflect this.

This entire section needs to be rewritten. It reads like a political platform. 75.115.218.102 (talk) 01:41, 1 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The Impact section cherry picks many references arguing that term limits are not helpful for solving certain problems.  (Unfortunately this material is copied and pasted to the introduction and to another Wikipedia article, Term_limit.)  This section does not refer to the primary impacts of term limits, such as limiting the power of individuals within the republic and maintaining stability of the republic across contested elections as are discussed in the body of the article.  If we want to keep this material, it should be in a section titled Arguments Against Term Limits, not Impact.  And it should be removed from the introduction. FrankSamuelson (talk) 12:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed that section in that other article because it also had other issues, which I brought up in its talk page and the edit history.
 * Really, why is the Impact section purely arguments against term limits? And at that, the first paragraph only talks about legislative ones, leaving out other offices such as executive term limits (and the merits of having them). This lack of arguments in favor of term limits is not due to scarcity - surely there must be some if people and lawmakers implemented them in the first place. 104.175.74.27 (talk) 04:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Term limits for federal boards and commissions
Should term limited for federal boards and commissions be included, for example the 14-year non-renewable appointment to the Federal Reserve? Dr. Conspiracy (talk) 05:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Biased!
Wow, this article is extremely biased - it reads like a campaign leaflet against term limitation. It is very hard to believe that a neutral author could fail completely to come up with a single argument FOR having a presidential term limit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.25.223.25 (talk) 11:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * For once I agree with an Ip user that had "!" in their section title. This article is biased and there is no argument to say it isn't. Tommy has a great username (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Please keep the talk page sections in chronological order, instead of making your section at the top of the page. 104.175.74.27 (talk) 04:38, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Impact section
The Impact Section of term limits seems to be all one sided. Many of the sources all come from the same place.
 * That is untrue. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * How is that untrue when the content of the section plainly shows that these are all arguments against term limits? 104.175.74.27 (talk) 04:33, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * They are not all arguments against term limits, they are studies that show the impacts of term limits. We don't do WP:FALSEBALANCE on Wikipedia. Find more sources, if you can. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Impact should be summarized in the lead
A large body of research is cited in the body. This research should be summarized in the lead. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * How about you don't try to continue POV pushing with an agenda against term limits? 104.175.74.27 (talk) 04:40, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * How about you stick to the topic of each discussion section? This is about compliance with the WP:LEAD guideline, which requires that the lead section provides an overview of the main points of the article body. Therefore, I have added a short sentence to the lead summarizing that section. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:20, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Term Limit in Virginia
Really unclear here, as it says that there is a limit for "one term" in Virginia, but that isn't the case, it's limitless, but one cannot serve consecutive terms. This should be changed for more clarity 2001:FB1:118:BE78:E5D8:F3FE:83C4:FCC (talk) 04:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)