Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Urges Change with Proposed National Amendment

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – In a spirited address this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis advocated for a significant alteration to the U.S. Constitution.

Speaking at the “Term Limits Summit” in Delray Beach, DeSantis urged lawmakers nationwide to back a constitutional amendment aimed at imposing term limits on Congress members.

“People are incredibly frustrated with Congress,” he remarked. “Sure, Republicans might be slightly less frustrated under Republican control, and Democrats under Democrats, but no one’s truly satisfied with Congress’s current operations.”

DeSantis emphasized the need for a shift in Congress members’ priorities, from constantly pursuing reelection to crafting meaningful legislation.

“With term limits, representatives would focus on leaving a legacy. They’d know they have six years in the House,” he explained. “They might run for Senate, but either way, they’d want to accomplish something noteworthy.”

Earlier in the year, DeSantis echoed these sentiments during a visit to Ohio, discussing the potential for a constitutional amendment with state lawmakers.

Last year, Florida lawmakers passed a resolution (HCR 693) with that same aim in mind.

While term limits have been established in Florida and 22 other states, that’s not the case at the federal level.

That’s because of a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which posited that congressional term limits may only be imposed if the U.S. Constitution is amended.

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To do so, two-thirds of the states can request a convention to propose such an amendment, though it would have to be ratified by at least 38 states before it could take effect.

That said, DeSantis said that it might not even take that many states to get Congress to take action.

“Well, what would happen if you got to 31, 32 states? I mean, Congress would end up passing it,” DeSantis posited. “I think they would want to control, and I think what they would do is probably pass what we want, but they would just say, ‘All current members are not subject to it until a certain time or new people are elected.’”

As of now, only 12 states — Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin — have passed resolutions in both houses of their Legislatures, calling for a U.S. Term Limits Convention.