By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – February 7, 2021 It seems when ever a segment of the population becomes dissatisfied with their representatives at the federal level, be it of their own or other congressmen and senators, there is a renewed call for term limits. This is nothing new, as it has been a remedy proposed nearly since the country was founded. Yet, the original framers steered away from the prospect of term limits due to the mistaken belief that representatives were intended to be merely part time legislators. After all, the power and scope of the federal government was to be limited to act on a very few things. Unfortunately, as the country grew, so did the government, to the extent that it no longer limits itself to its constitutional confines. It now has injected itself into arenas it was never meant to occupy. Too often the federal government usurps power meant only for the states and the federal courts have done little to curtail that activity. It is the same story with both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, which means that there has been a call for at least term limits for congress and the judicial appointees as well, a number of times through out the history of this country. Fortunately, the office of the president already has limits of two terms, which negate many of the arguments against term limits for both houses of congress. So what exactly does that mean for most citizens? What is the process for making that happen? We learned in 1995 (U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton) that it is not possible through legislative action at the state level. It must be through a Constitutional Amendment for it to happen. Since the formation of the country, nearly 250 years ago only 27 amendments have been successfully passed, the first ten are known as the Bill of Rights, and were proposed and passed a mere four years after the signing of the Constitution. The eighteenth has since been reversed. As you can see it is not an easy task to amend our formative document with term limits since it in effect curtails the activities of powerful legislators who have made a career out of public office. Hence it would be difficult to do it through the federal congress where a two thirds vote in both houses is one of the steps necessary. Over the past couple of decades as the popularity of congress has declined there has been increased interest in the passage of term limits. In 2016 the US Term Limits organization launched a new effort to force congress to hold a Convention of States specifically to address this issue. Currently there are fifteen of the necessary state resolutions of thirty four needed to force the convention. There are another fifteen states considering passage of the same resolution. If the goal of thirty four states is realized, it would still take an additional four states to be on board to ratify it as an amendment to the Constitution. Thirty eight in total. As you can see it is not an easy proposition. State tuned for the second part of this article where I will discuss the Pros and Cons of term limits.