The Congressional Service and Accountability Act

By Achuthan Panikath

Mon Aug 03 2026

The problem

The Constitution treats elected office as a public trust, yet federal law places almost no structural limit on how long a person may hold a seat in Congress. Some members serve for four or five decades. Long tenure is not inherently corrupt, and it can produce genuine expertise in budget procedure, oversight, and legislative craft. But it also produces a set of predictable pathologies: incumbency advantages that suppress electoral competition, fundraising networks that mature into permanent political machines, seniority systems that reward longevity over performance, and a legislative class whose professional incentives increasingly diverge from those of the people it represents.

The average tenure of members of Congress has grown substantially over the past century, and reelection rates for incumbents routinely exceed ninety percent in the House. When the practical probability of unseating an incumbent approaches zero, the election ceases to function as an accountability mechanism and becomes a ratification ritual. Term limits are a blunt instrument, but they address a problem that softer reforms have not solved.

Why this requires a constitutional amendment

This proposal does not attempt to impose term limits by ordinary statute, because the Supreme Court has already closed that door. In U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995), the Court held that states may not add qualifications for congressional office beyond the age, citizenship, and residency requirements listed in Article I of the Constitution. The reasoning applies with equal force to any federal statute that attempts the same thing. A term-limits law passed by simple majority would invite immediate litigation and would very likely be struck down, wasting political capital and discrediting the underlying idea.

The durable path is an amendment proposed by Congress under Article V, requiring a two-thirds vote in each chamber and ratification by three-fourths of the states. That is a high bar by design. It is also the only bar that matters. Public support for congressional term limits has polled consistently high across party lines for decades, which makes this one of the few structural reforms with a plausible ratification coalition.

What the amendment would provide

The amendment would establish maximum lifetime service in each chamber: twelve years in the House of Representatives, corresponding to six two-year terms, and eighteen years in the Senate, corresponding to three six-year terms. A person who served the maximum in one chamber could still seek election to the other, but no one could evade the limit on a chamber by resigning and returning, by appointment to fill a vacancy, or by any similar maneuver. Service in each chamber is counted separately and cumulatively.

Partial terms require careful treatment, and the amendment would delegate the details to implementing legislation within defined boundaries. As a default rule, a partial House term of less than two years and a partial Senate term of less than three years would not count against the limit, so that a person appointed or elected to fill a vacancy is not penalized for finishing someone else's term.

The amendment would operate prospectively. Service completed before ratification would be governed by a transition rule written into the amendment itself, and the amendment would not invalidate any election already held or remove any sitting member solely because the amendment took effect. Retroactive disqualification would be both unfair and politically fatal to ratification; a clean prospective rule avoids both problems.

Preserving institutional expertise

The strongest objection to term limits is not philosophical but practical. The experience of term-limited state legislatures, particularly California and Michigan in the years after their limits took effect, suggests that when experienced legislators leave, power does not evaporate. It migrates: to lobbyists who remember what the new members do not, to executive-branch agencies that outlast every legislative cohort, and to permanent staff whose influence grows precisely because elected members cycle out.

A term-limits amendment that ignores this evidence would trade one accountability problem for another. This proposal therefore pairs the amendment with a substantial statutory investment in the legislative branch's own institutional memory. Congress would expand nonpartisan committee counsel so that technical drafting expertise resides inside the institution rather than in K Street offices. It would increase analytical staffing at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the two institutions most responsible for giving members independent information. And it would build formal transition infrastructure, including legislative fellowship programs and structured onboarding for new members, so that a freshman class does not spend its first year learning procedure from lobbyists.

Term limits without institutional investment would be a half-built bridge. The turnover is the point, but turnover only serves the public if the institution retains the capacity to legislate competently through it.

Enforcement

Enforcement is deliberately mechanical. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), working with state election authorities, would verify a candidate's cumulative service before ballot certification, using the public record of congressional service that already exists. A person who has reached the constitutional maximum simply would not appear on the ballot for that chamber. Disputes over the counting of partial terms or the application of the transition rule would be subject to ordinary judicial review, but the rule itself leaves little room for discretion, which is a feature. No criminal penalty is needed or appropriate; ineligibility is the entire remedy.

Anticipated criticism and the honest answer

Opponents will argue that voters already possess a term-limit mechanism called an election, and that restricting whom voters may choose is itself anti-democratic. That argument deserves a direct answer rather than dismissal. The Constitution already restricts whom voters may choose: it excludes the young, the recently naturalized, and nonresidents, and the Twenty-Second Amendment excludes third-term presidents whom voters might happily reelect. American constitutional design has never treated unlimited voter choice as an absolute value. It balances choice against structural safeguards, and the question is whether entrenched incumbency has become a structural problem serious enough to justify a structural response. The reelection data, the fundraising asymmetries, and the decades-long careers now common in both chambers suggest that it has.

The second criticism, loss of expertise and empowerment of lobbyists, is addressed above and taken seriously: it is the reason this proposal is a package rather than a bare amendment.

Summary of the proposal Propose an Article V amendment limiting House service to twelve years and Senate service to eighteen years, applied prospectively, with partial-term rules set by implementing legislation and no evasion through inter-chamber appointment. Pair ratification with a statutory expansion of nonpartisan congressional staff, CRS and CBO capacity, and member transition programs. Enforce through ballot eligibility verification by the FEC, subject to judicial review.

Key references U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995). Article I and Article V of the U.S. Constitution. State-level term-limit experience in California, Michigan, and other term-limited legislatures. Scholarship on legislative professionalization and congressional capacity, including work published by the Brookings Institution and the R Street Institute on rebuilding congressional staff expertise.