TALLAHASSEE, FL—The Florida Legislature is demanding U.S. congressional term limits via an Article V Convention, propelling the resolution through and out of the Senate Thursday afternoon. Passed by the House last month, 34 states must petition Congress for a convention to amend the Constitution.
"Term limits creates an environment where you have new, fresh ideas injected into a governmental body," The resolution sponsor, Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, said Thursday. "It keep the ideas fresh and alive. In Congress, we literally have people dying in office because they don't want to leave. Ask yourself, is that a great way to govern a nation? I would say no,"
An Article V Convention has never been called for before, and thus has little to no legal precedent. The process requires 34 states to urge Congress to call a convention to amend the Constitution, and then 38 states to approve any changes.
"We absolutely have to have term limits at the federal level, what's going on right now is ridiculous," Republican Rep. Tom Leek told The Floridian. "If you have to move on after a certain period of time—and you're good at it—then you're going go find something else to run for, and you'll increase that talent pool and it'll be better for everybody,"
Florida is among 15 other states with term limit requirements for lawmakers. The U.S. Congress has none, despite efforts in the 1990s to impose them. The Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that only a constitutional amendment could change congressional term limit laws.
Democratic Sen. Geraldine Thompson opposed the resolution, explaining that while she supports term limits, a never-before-seen Convention, with few constitutional guidelines, had her wary of a potentially re-written Constitution.
"Once it's called, what would prevent a re-write of the Constitution? What would prevent prohibiting protest in this country? What would prevent prohibiting the right to worship and to have religious freedom?" She asked. "I think that the Article V Convention is very dangerous, and opens us up to any number of topics. Yes I believe in term limits, but you've married the two,"
In his close, Sen. Ingoglia explained that the Convention would be called solely for congressional term limits, stating that unrelated issues would simply not be discussed.
"Any governmental body when they go through this process has to adopt rules in order to govern what they are doing," He said, "What they cannot change is any concurrent resolution calling something for a specific issue, because that is clearly outlined in the Constitution. They can't just willy-nilly start adding stuff on whenever they want,"
