Finally, the passage of time since term limits were considered by the House gives us a chance to learn from the experience of the 20 states whose state legislators are now term limited. It is still too early to draw any definitive conclusions. At the very least, Congress would be wise to defer action on a constitutional amendment to limit congressional terms until these state experiments have a chance to play out and the results can be evaluated. Recent developments thus provide no basis for reevaluating past opposition to congressional term limits. In many respects term limits advocates have already succeeded in their most important objectives.
Voters are less passively supportive of their own representative.
Candidates are increasingly self-limiting their own terms, opting as incumbents to leave earlier and as challengers to promise to spend only a short period of time in public life. Changes in party control of the Congress are likely to be more norm than exception in future years. Reformers in both the House and Senate have taken steps to limit the automatic advantages of seniority. The president has been given a statutory line-item veto. Congress is grappling successfully with the budget deficit, thanks in part to the leadership of seasoned legislative leaders.