Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Speaks on Term Limits

“I always will consider myself a close personal friend of President Washington and believe he set an excellent example in limiting himself in the number of terms served.  My own history of service as a Major General in the militia and the US Army, as ambassador to France, as a State senator, and as a candidate for Vice President and President twice was motivated by a strong desire to shape this nation as I believed few others could.

“When I first traveled to the Constitutional convention, it took 23 days to get from my home in South Carolina to Philadelphia.  Today people routinely travel anywhere in the United States in less than half a day and can perform work during the trip.  We never conceived of the convenience of travel when establishing the terms of members of Congress.  We viewed the ardors and time of travel as a reason why few citizens would be able to serve in Congress.

We also assumed that a limited number of citizens would have the interest and intellect to take on the challenge of serving as a Congressman or Senator.  Looking at today’s population, it is clear that there are millions of citizens who would be qualified to serve in one of these positions – more than the entire population of the United States in our time. 

Because of the rules of Congress, today members who serve more terms have more power in terms of committee chairmanship and other positions within Congress.  This implies that some States and Districts have more power and influence than others.  This situation is completely counter to our intent to assure that each State is represented equally in the Senate and each individual is represented equally in the House.  In fact it is amazing to me that no one has challenged the Constitutionality of the current system in terms of equal representation.

The value of being reelected has become so large that a significant portion of the members’ time is spent on getting reelected and the associated fund raising.  It was not our intent that any significant time be spent on such activities.  In fact President Washington is a model of what we desired, a reluctant server to his constituents.

The combination of these factors leads me to the conclusion that all members of Congress could and should be limited to a single term.  This would eliminate the focus on reelection, provide truly equal representation, provide more diversity, and better represent the contemporary views of the constituency. 

Similar proposals have been made in the past and an argument has been that single terms would result in more power for Congressional staffs since they typically have more longevity than their principals.  There are several fallacies in this argument, first the staffs spend much of their time dealing with matters that would become irrelevant when reelection is not an option – thus either fewer staff members would be required or their duties could change to ones more consistent with good representation.   Second, there would likely be much greater turnover in the staffs because of changes in party and individuals in each election.  Third, there is nothing wrong with our elected representatives having the best advisers possible and it would be one of their responsibilities to assure that that is the case.