Let’s rid Congress of career pols
Windham, N.H.: In 1951, three-quarters of the United States ratified the 22nd Amendment via Article V convention, imposing term limits on the office of the American presidency after the corrosive effect on our democracy from an executive with wartime powers run amok in Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While a patriot and in the upper class of American presidents, FDR had grown aggressive and unafraid of his coequal branches of American government by the time of his death, as evidenced by his court-packing scheme and much of his New Deal being struck down as unconstitutional.
Today, Feb. 27, we mark the 70th anniversary of this great achievement on the date of the ratification, which is now National Term Limits Day. Today more than ever, we Americans should mark this date by calling for the same level of accountability on our most powerful branch — the Legislative — as was placed on the Executive seven decades ago.
Article V was included by our founders for the very purpose of allowing the states recourse through constitutional amendment against future federal governments no longer responsive to their needs, a characterization fitting our current federal government more now than at any other time in our history. We ordinary citizens can celebrate Term Limits Day this and every year by contacting our state assemblies and legislatures to support the Term Limits pledge and a call for a new Article V convention, and by signing up with the U.S. term limits movement online.