Term limits in the U.S. Congress : a historical and judicial investigation

Limiting the terms of members of Congress has become a highsalience issue in contemporary American political discourse, necessitating the attention of the United States Supreme Court to provide constitutional guidance. The forces reviving this debate, dormant since the nation's founding period, merit scrutiny. In addition to reviewing the positions of term limitation advocates and opponents, specific limitation proposals--which lack uniformity as some are chamber-specific, others are life-time bans, etc--also require investigation. The review of relevant judicial precedents will also provide helpful preliminary information useful to analyze U.S. Term Limits vs. Thornton, the term limits case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1995. Researching this increasingly divisive political issue ought to generate a useful, concise synopsis of the historical and judicial issues underpinning the debate, the discussion itself, and analysis of relevant judicial action.