An effort in Tallahassee to propose congressional term limits is getting some national play as a political group showcased it on Monday.
U.S. Term Limits, one of the leading groups in the nation pushing congressional term limits, highlighted proposals to call a constitutional convention under Article V to solely tackle the subject of federal term limits. State Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Jacksonville, and Florida Rep. Larry Metz, R-Groveland, filed memorials on the matter on Thursday.
The legislation proposes a “convention under Article V of the Constitution of the United States with the sole agenda of proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to set a limit on the number of terms that a person may be elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives and to set a limit on the number of terms that a person may be elected as a member of the United States Senate.”
For the convention to be convened, 34 states must agree to it. If the convention proposes an amendment, 38 states must ratify it for it to be added to the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Term Limits President Philip Blumel, who is based in Palm Beach, cheered the proposal as “the first big step toward delivering congressional term limits for the American people.”
“Seventy-eight percent of Americans support the Term Limits Convention, including huge majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents,” Blumel said on Monday. “Thanks to Article V of the Constitution, state legislators have a way to make term limits into a reality without needing approval from Congress.”
Back in 1992, almost 77 percent of Floridians backed Amendment 9 which enacted eight year term limits on federal and state officials but, in 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not enact congressional term limits. The same year, despite Republicans taking over the House in 1994 by calling for congressional term limits, U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., attempted to push a proposed amendment though Congress limiting members of the U.S. House and Senate to serving 12 years but it fell far short of the two-thirds needed to pass the chamber.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
