Opinion ID: 1452513
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: oklahoma and the term limits battle

Text: In 1994, Oklahoma became the first state to enact term limits for its Congressional representatives. This was achieved through an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution by way of an initiative election. See In re Initiative Petition No. 360, 879 P.2d 810 (Okla.1994). In that election, the state question garnered 67 per cent of the vote. Twenty-one other states had adopted term limit measures at the time the United States Supreme Court held them unconstitutional on May 22, 1995, in United States Term Limits v. Thornton, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 1842, 131 L.Ed.2d 881 (1995). The Court suggested that such a fundamental change in the federal constitutional framework must come not by legislation adopted either by Congress or by an individual state, but ratheras have other important changes in the electoral processthrough the amendment procedures set forth in Article V. Id. at ___, 115 S.Ct. at 1871 (footnote omitted). Congressional term limits supporters have begun a campaign to get two-thirds of the states to apply to Congress to call a federal constitutional convention on the question. One effort in that campaign is Initiative Petition No. 364.