Term limits are a very coarse way of trying to change Congress. To some people, they limit the choices of citizens. So how about we compromise on term limits?

1. Compromise on term limits: Let each state decide

Creating term limits for Congress would require a constitutional amendment, which is a difficult process. And once done, it would be similarly difficult to undo.

One way to compromise is to let each state decide on whether to impose term limits on its own senators and representatives. 23 states had already imposed term limits on their members of Congress when the Supreme Court said this was against the constitution, in 1995.

2. Compromise on term limits: Make a national referendum

Another compromise would be to amend the constitution to allow a national referendum on term limits. This way, we can easily decide to create them or abandon them.

And perhaps we want this on any issue. An amendment could instead say that a referendum should be held on any issue that polls consistently at 75% or higher for at least 12 months. Possibly, we should limit this to political reform issues.

3. Give Congress the power to enact term limits

At very least, a constitutional amendment could give Congress the power to enact term limits. This would provide some forward movement on the issue and make future changes easier. After all, amendments should be simple and a constitutional amendment is difficult to pass. If we want the flexibility to try different approaches, we should amend the constitution to allow it, not specify an exact solution.

What’s the root issue?

Some people argue that term limits will solve the problems of “career politicians”, corruption, and the lack of new ideas. But as I’ve written before, term limits probably won’t help much with those.

On the other hand, corruption could be solved with anti-corruption legislation that the public widely supports. And there are other widely-desired changes the public wants, too, that Congress doesn’t act on.

I say that the real problem is that the public’s approval rate of Congress is low. Currently it’s around 18%. I believe the disapproval comes from the gridlock about important issues, plus the huge amount of negative publicity from members of Congress about each other. They seem to be unable to do much at all, whether it’s nominating a supreme court judge replacement, passing a budget on time or getting the widely desired changes passed. And they love blaming it on the other party.

4. Compromise: Term-limits conditional on disapproval of Congress

So how about making term limits conditional on public approval?

What if we limited members of Congress to two terms if the approval rating of Congress is low? When the approval rating of Congress is low, members of Congress who’ve served before would be barred from running again. That would motivate the whole Congress to work together to solve problems.

Let’s say we do an thorough survey of American voters every April and October. We could say that the average approval rating of Congress must be at least 50% in the October rating of the first year of their term and 70% in the April rating of the second year of their term in order to run again, if this is their second or later term. The first April rating will serve as a benchmark- putting them on notice.

And the approval rating could be more sophisticated. For instance, we could have two ratings:

• Have they made a decent agenda?
• Have they made decent progress?

And instead of approving or disapproving, it might be easier to give them a grade, A, B, C, or D.  We perhaps for the first term in which this is enacted, they could stave off term limits if they get a C+ or better. After that, we could insist on a B.

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