2023 has positioned us with several opportunities for success in 2024.
We had our first vote in Congress since the 1990s. We passed the state of Oklahoma completely as well as one chamber in North Carolina and Tennessee. We also played an integral role in the ballot initiative in North Dakota that set term limits on its governor and state lawmakers starting in 2024… not an easy feat to accomplish since we had to battle the career politicians in court relentlessly, exposing the corruption of the then Secretary of State there. Fortunately, we won on appeal.
Last September, we finally got a vote in the U.S. House. And, for the first time in history, the Speaker is a term limits pledge signer and cosponsor of our resolution, HJR11. We have 135 signers in the current Congress with the most bipartisan support we have ever had. Years of tough work led up to these accomplishments and we couldn’t have done so without the generous help and dedication of our supporters including volunteers, donors, and those of you who take-action to advance our cause.
We have covered how the predictable outcome of the vote on HJR11 reaffirmed our position that the best way to put term limits on Congress is for the states to put pressure on the federal legislative body by passing our resolution for a national term limits convention to propose a term limits amendment.
We believe that when it is imminent that the states will pass a term limits proposal, Congress will pre-empt by proposing their own amendment, setting their own terms. A new Pew Research poll reported that a whopping 87% of Americans want term limits on Congress… and the most recent survey from Gallup indicates that the congressional approval rating has been torpedoed to low double digits, tanking to a mere 13%. With all of this in mind, we are full steam ahead and have already begun prefiling resolutions for the upcoming legislative session.
Since we passed the state house in both North Carolina and Tennessee, we are gearing up to pass the state senate in both. Relationship building is a huge part of that, and we meet with the lawmakers to get their commitment via the term limits pledge. Once they sign, we can have a more accurate prediction of how they will vote, or what we call “the whip count.”
Other states where our whip count and/or relationships are looking pretty good are Indiana, Louisiana, and Georgia. We will potentially introduce our term limits convention resolutions in 23 states including Alaska, Ohio, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Delaware.
We’ll keep you posted on every milestone along the way and let you know where you can help by writing your state lawmakers to take-action at termlimits.com/takeaction. Here’s looking forward to a promising “term limits”
year in 2024