August, 2025

Term Limits in History

By Ruth McLatchie

Term limits are an ancient idea that sprung from the civil societies of Athens, Sparta, and Rome. The democracy of ancient Athens, whose king at its height was little more than a figurehead, operated in six main bodies comprised of magistrates, generals, administrative councilmen, general assemblymen, popular court jurors, and the Areopagus, a body of aristocrats whose main task in democratic Athens was to judge serious crimes. These six bodies were comprised of civic officeholders who, as Athens moved more towards democracy, obtained their posts less through heredity and more through a system of elections, random selections, and direct participation. Athenian term limits, which began in the 6th century B.C.E., and which in some cases (the administrative council) were just one year, were designed to avoid corruption and ensure greater participation in the political process. (Source: EBSCO.com, an educational research database.)

Sparta, which was more of a true monarchy with some democratic tendencies, operated three main political bodies under the king: the council of elders (appointed for life after age 60), the assembly of the people (direct participation of male citizens over age 30), and the ephorate (a sort of supreme court). The latter were elected annually and routinely rotated to prevent power from accumulating in the hands of a few.

Three main political bodies ruled the Roman Republic: the Senate, the magistrates (executive), and the assemblies (legislative and electoral). Although the Senate, composed of aristocrats, was mostly advisory in nature, it appeared to exert the most influence over society and over the other branches of government. The assemblies included the Comitia Centuriata and the Comitia Tributa, which elected magistrates and passed laws, and the Concilium Plebis, which represented the common people. After observing what the Greeks did with term limits, the Romans of the Roman Republic, which endured from 509 B.C.E. to 27 B.C.E., made term limits a central factor in their political system of checks and balances. Consuls and magistrates were elected annually and could not be immediately re-elected. Censors were elected every 5 years for a term of 18 months, ensuring adequate rotation. Dictators could be appointed for a maximum of 6 months to deal with a crisis situation. Senators served for life, but could be impeached. In addition, there was provision for magistrates to veto each other. As with other putatively good things, the long-lived Republic finally came to an end amidst political instability, social unrest, ambitious generals, and consolidation of power by the leader, resulting in the not-so-democratic and not-so-republican Roman Empire.

So it should have been no surprise that classically educated founders of the United States of America, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, argued for inclusion of term limits in the United States Constitution. They were in the minority, so term limits were left out. The historical arguments that won the day back then involved the desirability of experienced leaders, the potential for instability, and the lack of necessity because of regular elections.

After the Constitution was first ratified in 1788, there was an informal tradition that no President serve more than two terms. The tradition was broken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President during the Second World War, whose fourth term ended in his death from natural causes in 1945. As a result of this experience, Congress and the people of the United States decided that the two-term tradition needed to be codified, which it was in 1951 with the adoption of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Along the way, we also acquired term limits for other political office holders and judges. That acquisition was piecemeal, and movements toward more comprehensive term limits continue to be discussed into the present, the most recent discussions involving age limits to prevent problems arising from decreasing physical and cognitive competence.

The arguments, both for and against term limits, have a long history, as do the arguments for and against the alternatives. However, where many citizens can agree is the idea that checks and balances of some kind, whether term limits or something else, are needed in order to preserve and defend democratic and republican ideals.

Current Pros and Cons about Term Limits

By Ruth McLatchie

According to Professor Anthony Fowler of the Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago, in his Democracy Reform Primer Series, the body of theoretical and empirical research on term limits tells us:

Term limits remove high-quality elected officials that voters like.
Term limits may lessen motivation for elected officials to work hard throughout their terms.
Term limits tend to increase polarization.

However, the research does not tell us:

How term limits affect the kinds of people who decide to run for office.
Whether performance of elected officials improves with experience.
Whether term limits change the ways elected officials interact with their colleagues.

While Fowler suggests there are valid reasons to support term limits, he also suggests that there may be valid methods other than term limits to foster accountability in elected officials without removing good performers or removing incentives to do a better job.

Some valid reasons to support term limits

Term limits might theoretically reduce the likelihood that a politician would choose a popular policy over a policy which their private information tells them is better.
Term limits might prevent politicans from spending public funds in a way that maximizes their reelection potential, rather than in a way that maximizes the public good.
Term limits might prevent voters from feeling that, given a flawed system, they have no choice but to re-elect an incumbent in order for their constituency not to lose power in the system.

Some ways to foster accountability without general term limits

Campaign finance reforms that result in decreased time spent fundraising in order to increase time spent on developing good policy.
Ballot access reforms that result in greater electoral competition and reduced reliance on political party machines.
Legislative reform for leadership and committee assignments that value achievements over seniority.

Our take: Citizens Digest neither supports nor recommends against term limits. Our aim is to foster a healthy democracy through accountability and avoid the political abuse of power by providing opportunities for citizen-stakeholders to educate themselves about the issue.

Term Limits and Smooth Transitions for the Future

By Mark Harris

There has always been a problem with the American bureaucratic system. How do you staff the government? Political elections occur every two to four years, yet most programs, systems, and initiatives on the scale of the federal government require institutional structures that last decades. How are institutions supposed to withstand the changing political landscape, election after election, and decade after decade? Some have argued that they should be at the whim of the new administration, while others contend that the institutions should hold out against the changes imposed by short-lived leaders. This struggle has existed in some form throughout U.S. history, and in some ways, it has been a swinging pendulum; however, this is by no means merely a historical struggle.

No, the consequences of the current administration’s methods of changing the institutions are playing out right in front of us. With thousands of federal employees getting “DOGE-ed” in this first year of the second Trump administration. With the many failures of institutions in the past few years, some cases could be made for a dramatic change to be made on many fronts, some with merit and some without. This, however, is not the place for that discussion. Instead, let’s argue for a more perfect system that allows for better function regardless of the political climate of the day.

A method of achieving that end may come from a form of term limit for institutional leadership, particularly those in appointed positions. This may seem like just arguing that the new administration ought to just have total control over the direction of the agency, but that is not the case. By setting the term limit of an appointed official to a two-year term, the official must take actions to ensure that they can pass the baton to another within the term of even a single administration, as well as scope their actions to the length of their tenure.

A change in the top-level leadership would also allow for a pivot point where institutional priorities could shift without as much resistance, returning more of the directional power to the many career public servants who outlast many administrations. This would also allow for a quick chance to return for career public servants, if they were wrongfully terminated from their position by a politically motivated action. It would also prevent heads of governmental institutions from leveraging their positions of power to aid the administration’s re-election efforts due to being term-limited to a date preceding or coinciding with the administration’s re-election bid.

This, of course, is not a cure-all solution, nor would it work well for every agency, particularly concerning national security and foreign relations, where long-standing relationships are far more important. Domestic and economic-focused agencies would likely benefit the most, as they would be able to respond to the rapid shifts in the domestic landscape, making it easier to meet the needs of Americans more effectively. It would also benefit STEM and research-based agencies due to the spur it would provide for academics to aspire to become the head of an agency, as it would become far more achievable within a lifetime. Not so for national security and foreign relations, where these same incentives would cut against the implementation and forging of relations between diplomats that lead to more stable relations.

For such institutions that would benefit from extended leadership term limits, they could still benefit from term limits with longer terms. Four-year term limits would coincide with executive terms, and eight-year limits could allow for a single official to remain in power across a full two-term presidency, yet still not see them trying to plan for staying beyond that length. Another potential solution would involve locking appointees into their positions for the length of their term-limited role. This would prevent changes in leadership before the end of a given term, no matter what the whims of the administration. However, it would also prevent the removal of an unelected official until their term had ended, which would pose issues in the case of incompetence or harmful actions.

The goal is to find a way to limit the chaos of transitioning from leader to leader and administration to administration, but that does not mean we ought to disregard all other considerations. The reason we have our democratic system is to provide public oversight of the government and the officials that comprise it, and though we certainly cannot elect every position, we could potentially open up a process where we elect some formerly appointed positions, which would make the case for term-limiting those positions even stronger. This could potentially result in agencies being more beholden to the public’s interest instead of the administration’s claims about the public’s interest.

Another approach would be to focus on the policies and programs themselves instead of the officials overseeing them. Limits could be put on the scope and duration of actions taken by agencies to align them with election cycles. This could provide benefits in seeking a smooth transition from administration to administration, but would not benefit programs and initiatives that need to extend beyond two or four years. A method of locking in an initiative for a set amount of time would rightly have to come through a legislative or democratic process. Which would be a preferred solution to many of the issues that are brought about through administrative changes (it was the Founding Fathers’ intent after all), but with the current issues plaguing Congress, the likelihood of using that avenue for all such initiatives is exceedingly low.

There is no magic bullet solution. However, as we see there are real issues and flaws in the current system, it behooves us to look for novel answers. We can change things about how our government functions and the way roles are filled and vacated. We can also change the incentives that push government agencies and institutions to behave the way that they do without drastic change. However, it is an admirable goal to seek solutions that go beyond the current moment, to improve the structures and machinery of our governmental system. Perhaps fostering that spirit is the best solution of all. Maybe the most important change would be if leaders chose to build a better tomorrow, regardless of the climate of the day.

What We’re Reading

Term Limits and Their Consequences: The Aftermath of Legislative Reform

Term Limits and Their Consequences by Stanley Caress et al. attempts to provide an evidence-based analysis of the effects of term limits on state government. Both sides of the circa-1980s and 1990s debate had provided conjectured reasoning, understandably lacking evidence, and Caress circles back here to belatedly provide that data after several decades.

For instance, the authors looked into the claim among proponents that term limits would improve female and minority representation in legislatures, as older entrenched white male interests would be pushed out. Caress and his group finds some improvement in representation with doubt as to whether term limits alone improved the numbers or represented a co-occurrence. On the other hand, there is more evidence that entrenched systems themselves were weakened, creating competitive primary elections and opening up leadership roles within legislatures for females and minorities. The prevailing take actually seems to be that velocity increased; legislators know that their time is limited and therefore move quickly. Set your legislative legacy and find your next seat, even if it’s currently occupied by a fellow party member.

Do termed out legislators actually ever move on, though? Caress and crew found, and term limit state voters have witnessed an occasional low-stakes seat trading game. The authors also discovered a cottage industry of trading seats within a family.

While these are valuable takeaways, we should perhaps separate the practical effects of rotation against the human desire for rotation. Meaning, it’s possible that the practical defense of progressive effects of term limit reform misses the point. More likely, the concept of term limits reflects the aspirational sense of citizen government. Across the board, citizens react with revulsion at the idea of an entrenched governing class, while the idea of the citizen legislator is seen as the elective goal par excellence.

The rhetoric vs observed comparative effect of separation of powers or rule of law, when looked at empirically, would certainly be interesting reads. But the result of the study doesn’t shift the principle that stands as a cornerstone of the liberal experiment. There is no imbalance of evidence-against vs. evidence-for that would (or should) cause a change of principles.

The text is clear about this entrenched philosophical position, noting that voters “found the simple idea of limited incumbent tenure to be appealing and consistent with their general mistrust of powerful institutions.” This belief would seem to transcend ideology in favor of something much deeper.

In this way, the exercise of institutionalized term limits and rotation are self-evident to the same extent as our equality as citizens. The argument does not reflect a particular judgement of those who are elected and retain office as much as a desire for our government at its core. The philosopher David Hume was known for his observation that you cannot bridge “is” and “ought.” At some point, a value judgement needs to be made. In this case, the overwhelming value judgement of generations of Americans is in favor of term limits, no matter the results of this experiment.

– Reviewed by Mike Gonzalez

This Day In History

Late August 1787: At the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention delegates debated presidential term lengths. A Committee of Eleven proposed a four‑year presidential term “without a bar to reelection,” meaning no term limit. Ultimately the Convention set four‑year terms but did not include any restriction on re-election.
August 1789: In the 1st U.S. Congress, Representative Thomas T. Tucker proposed a constitutional amendment to limit House members to three consecutive terms (six years). The House voted to defeat this term‑limit amendment, leaving no restriction on how long Representatives could serve.
August 1789: In the same session, anti‑Federalists also proposed an amendment to limit presidents to two terms (eight years). The House again voted it down, so no presidential term limit was imposed at that time. This precedent of no Presidential term limit lasted until the 22nd Amendment in 1951.
August 7, 1912: New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson formally accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. Wilson campaigned on progressive reforms but respected the two‑term tradition; he later won the presidency and, in keeping with precedent, declined to seek a third term.
August 21, 1959: Hawaii was admitted as the 50th U.S. state. Its state constitution, adopted at statehood, set a four‑year term for governor “renewable once”, creating a two-term limit for the governor. This was consistent with many state constitutions that restricted governors to two terms.

– Compiled by Elizabeth Frost and Staff

Coming Next Month: The Power of the Public

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