Beto’s Term-Limits Plan Is Just What Democrats Need

Anyone who remembers the 1994 Republican “Contract With America” might have found it jarring to read Beto O’Rourke’s voting-rights plan, released this week.

Along with a range of other policies, from automatic voter registration to campaign-finance reform, the Democratic presidential candidate and former congressman calls for term limits for members of the House, Senate, and Supreme Court.

While term limits for the justices have become a , term limits for Congress are an idea that left popular circulation around the time Newt Gingrich stepped down as speaker of the House. When the GOP reclaimed the House in a stunning victory in 1994, the new majority began implementing reforms. One of those was term limits—in fact, Republicans wanted the same 12-year limits (six terms for the House, two for the Senate). Many of its former proponents went on to . The idea has seldom been heard since.