[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 57 (Tuesday, March 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3862-H3863]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS NEEDED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Inglis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INGLIS of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise on the eve 
of a very historic day in this Chamber. Tomorrow, for the first time in 
the history of this country, we are going to vote on term limits. This 
is a very exciting moment as we prepare to undertake what I believe to 
be the most significant reform that this body has ever made for itself. 
This is an exciting day.
  First of all, I want to indicate to all watching here tonight and all 
of my colleagues here in the House that this rule that makes in order 
tomorrow these four options is a tremendous opportunity for us to get 
real accountability on the issue of term limits. Tomorrow there isn't 
going to be anyplace for Members of Congress to hide. They are either 
voting for my 6-year bill, they are voting for a 12-year bill that Mr. 
McCollum just spoke of, they are voting for a 12-year bill that Mr. 
Hilleary spoke of earlier, or they are voting for a fraud that is 
masquerading as term limits that is really not term limits, it is 
designed as a poison pill to kill term limits by retroactivity 
provisions. Those are the options. Tomorrow Members in this Chamber 
will have to vote yes or no on term limits.
  Tonight what I would like to do is begin laying the case that we will 
make after many hours of debate tomorrow on the need for term limits. I 
have a couple of charts that I think will demonstrate fairly well why 
we need term limits.
  The first one I have here shows the average tenure of a Member of 
Congress and members of the general public in their jobs. As you can 
see here, the average American keeps his or her job 6 years. The 
average Member of Congress keeps his or her job 8 years. The average 
member, and this is a critical number, the average member of the 
leadership of this institution has kept his or her job for 22 years. 
That is ranking members and committee chairmen, add them all up, take 
the average, they have been here an average of 22 years.
  I think this tells the story of what is wrong with this Congress. 
This is what the American people seek to change. They want a more fluid 
body. They do not want a leadership that has been here 22 years on 
average. They want it more in line with what the average American 
experiences, a job change on average every 6 years.
  Of course, in the 1994 election we had a great deal of talk about 
change, and there was a tremendous change, because we got a change in 
the management team here in Congress. I should point out right here 
what a difference an election can make. The last Congress, the 103d 
Congress, we were fighting against a Speaker of the House of 
Representatives who sued the people of his State, arguing that what 
they had done in a State initiative was unconstitutional. Now we have a 
Speaker of the House who is helping us to get a good vote on this floor 
and is pushing Members of this Congress to vote for what the American 
people want, which is term limits. By 80 percent the American people 
want term limits. So when 
[[Page H3863]] you look at this election, it made a tremendous 
difference.
  The 1994 elections brought people like Mr. Fox, my colleague here, 
who arranged this series of special orders here tonight, and I very 
much appreciate all of his work on terms limits. It has brought 
wonderful people like Mr. Fox here. It has brought people like Mr. 
Hilleary, who has an amendment on the floor
 tomorrow. It has brought people like my two colleagues from South 
Carolina, Mr. Sanford and Mr. Graham, that are strong supporters of 
term limits.

  But that election, for all that change and particularly that 
management change, really reflected a great deal of continuity in this 
body. Here is again why we need term limits. The 1994 election, of 
those who wanted to come back, 90 percent were reelected. In 1992, of 
those who wanted to come back, 88 percent were reelected. In 1990, of 
those who wanted to come back, 96 percent were reelected.
  It is very important to look at those who wanted to come back, 
because the change we have gotten, particularly if you look at 1992 and 
1994, has been as a result of open seat elections. In other words, 
people deciding to retire or leave for whatever reason, they left, they 
left an open seat. As a result, we had an open seat election.
  The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra] is here with me tonight. 
When we were elected, both of us came in 1992, we both, maybe one of 
the best arguments against term limits, because both of us happened to 
defeat incumbents. That was very rare in 1992, 88 percent of those who 
wanted to come back, and again, 1994, 90 percent of those who wanted to 
come back came back.
  This indicates we have got a permanent Congress. That permanent 
Congress needs to be changed by term limits. If we enact term limits, 
we will have a different kind of Congress, we will have a Congress that 
is more accountable to the American people, and a Congress that would 
not take much time to pass a constitutional amendment on term limits 
when they realize that 80 percent of the American people want it. The 
percentages are maybe reversed in here. It is hard to get people to 
vote for term limits inside here. But tomorrow I think we will do just 
that.

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