Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Ted Cruz is right!

Sen. Ted Cruz

A bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz would limit House members to three two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms.

Sergio Flores/Getty Images

Natbony is the author and originator of The Lonely Realist.


Sen. Ted Cruz is the lead sponsor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would impose term limits on members of Congress. Senators would be limited to two six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms. Although voters in the 1990s supported sweeping term limit legislation that imposed limits on state and local officeholders, the congressional term limits movement stalled in 1995 when the Supreme Court ruled that federal limits require a constitutional amendment.

The result has been congressional term limit stagnation, with more than 90 percent of House incumbents being re-elected year after year and the reelection rate among Senators falling below 80 percent just three times since 1982.

More than 60 percent of Republicans and Democrats support the adoption of federal term limits, recognizing that the Congressional Incumbents Club is a paradigm of careerism, combining power, stature and influence with lavish benefits: a high salary; unparalleled business connections; limited working days; spectacular working conditions; periodic taxpayer-funded fact-finding trips; a sizable staff (that could include family and friends); exceptional medical, dental and retirement benefits; weakened insider trading rules; taxpayer funded legal expenses; the ability to moonlight at other jobs; free flights back and forth to the lawmaker's home state; a family death gratuity; and free parking.

No wonder those elected to Congress make every effort to hold onto their jobs and special-interest groups spend lavishly to ensure that those they've elected continue to protect and enhance their special interests.

These perks help to explain why public confidence in Congress remains near an all-time low — 12 percent according to a 2021 Gallup poll. The consensus that Congress is broken is so widely-held that if ever there was an issue that should command bipartisan support, it's congressional term limits. Although the Heritage Foundation concluded in 1994 that "term limits are here to stay as an important issue on the American political landscape," it and the U.S. Term Limits lobby badly misunderstood the degree of self-interest and power of the Congressional Incumbents Club. Unless a Constitutional change movement originates with the states and mobilizes its way to Congress (as previously suggested), term limits bills are doomed to gather dust on congressional bookshelves.

Term limits have been a net benefit at the state and local levels. They would bring new perspectives to Congress, encouraging those with fresh ideas to run for office (perhaps to some degree offsetting the Supreme Court's 2019 holding that gerrymandering is constitutional). Term limits also would diminish incentives for election-related spending that have proliferated in the careerist Congress (especially following the Supreme Court's 2010 decision validating the solicitation and receipt of unlimited campaign contributions).

Although there are strong arguments against term limits, a further significant benefit would be a counterbalancing of incumbent financial and media advantages, as well as the name recognition, media access and embedded political contributions that flow to incumbency. Term limits also would incentivize members of Congress to nurture their successors by providing the types of apprenticeship experiences that make for practical staff training in other industries, thereby taking legislation out of the hands of lobbyists, bureaucrats and unelected Beltway insiders.

Read More

U.S. Refines Military Strategy in Africa As Development Programs Face Cuts

Royal Moroccan Armed Forces service members and U.S. Army Soldiers hold an African Lion banner during a Moroccan F-16 flyover at the closing day of African Lion 2025 (AL25) at Tantan, Morocco, May 23, 2025.

By Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Mallett/U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa

U.S. Refines Military Strategy in Africa As Development Programs Face Cuts

WASHINGTON – Both the Trump administration and its critics agree the U.S. risks losing influence in Africa to rivals like China and Russia. But while the administration argues its commercially driven foreign policy will reverse the trend, critics warn that retreating from development and diplomacy could deepen the problem.

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. plans to consolidate embassies, scale back USAID operations, and pivot towards a security and commercial driven approach on the continent. While U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) defense officials insist their core missions within Africa will remain intact, civilian experts and lawmakers argue that abandoning diplomatic and development tools opens the door for strategic competitors to fill the void and fails to take into account what would best benefit African countries.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025
a group of windmills in the sky above the clouds

We Can Save Our Earth: Environment Opportunities 2025

On May 8th, 2025, the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP) convened a session to discuss the future of the transition to clean energy in the face of some stiff headwinds caused by the new US administration led by Donald Trump. The panel included Dale Bryk, Director of State and Regional Policy at the Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program and a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association, and Dan Sosland, President of the Acadia Center. The discussion was moderated by Richard Eidlin, National Policy Director for Business for America.

 
 


Keep ReadingShow less
Against the Present: The Future of Feminism Is Now
silhouette of personr
Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Against the Present: The Future of Feminism Is Now

Democracy in America is being driven into the shadows. Anyone in doubt need only pause to reflect on the events of June, when the military parade of the autocrat-in-chief in DC coincided with a manhunt for an assassin of lawmakers in Minnesota. Lawmakers who had stood up for reproductive freedom, as well as other progressive issues.

Let us say their names. Melissa Hortman. John Hoffman. They died by gun violence for what they believed in, and as a result of what they had worked for as elected officials. The gunman who robbed us of them also killed Hortman’s husband, Mark Hortman.

Keep ReadingShow less
Just the Facts: Trump Signs ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump, delivers remarks during an Independence Day military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. At the picnic President Trump signed the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act into law.

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Just the Facts: Trump Signs ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Washington — With pomp and circumstance, President Donald Trump signed the "big, beautiful bill" on Friday at an Independence Day ceremony at the White House.

“We made promises, and it’s really promises made, promises kept, and we’ve kept them,” Trump said. “This is a triumph of democracy on the birthday of democracy. And I have to say, the people are happy.”

Keep ReadingShow less