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May 7, 2024

Goldman School of Public Policy's Official Undergraduate Public Policy Journal at UC Berkeley

Congressional Term Limits are the Key to Maintaining Our Democracy

By  Michelle Tombu

T he democratic system of government in America was designed to most effectively serve the nation by vesting power in all its people. And yet it has increasingly become a weapon employed by individual politicians in fulfilling their sole objective of, first, garnering political power and then permanently remaining in it. An imposition of term limits for members of Congress has long been backed by a large majority of Americans on the impulse of fostering candid debate and forging a more progressive society – one which maintains the true integrity of our nation’s democracy. The current effects of congressional stagnation has resulted in more than 90% of House incumbents being continuously reelected year after year, with the reelection rate among Senators falling below 80% only three times total since 1982 [4]. Congressional term limits have the potential to ameliorate many of America’s most pressing political issues by “ counterbalancing incumbent advantages, ensuring congressional turnover, securing independent congressional judgment, and reducing election-related incentives for wasteful government spending” [1]. But perhaps most importantly, such a change will allow Congress to appear directly face to face with its own fragility, acquire a sense of its own transitoriness and potentially even come to learn ways in which to sustain legitimacy. Term limits are a very necessary corrective to the current political inequalities which perpetually avail incumbents and inevitably hinder their challengers. 

The 22nd Amendment of the United States Constitution imposes a two term limit on all presidencies as a check on federal executive power. P residential term limits sustain the democracy of the position and ensure a single candidate does not cling on to power for an excessive period of time. Our national legislation has already appointed term limits on the office of the President in an effort to maintain political impartiality, thus it is only logical that such measures be applied to Congress as well. Some argue that congressional elections serve as inherent term limits for members of the House. This can be refuted by political campaign donors’ recognition of an incumbent candidate’s higher reelection rate and subsequent inclination to support such a campaign in an effort to yield more profit. This makes it nearly impossible for other candidates to have a chance at a fair election. In primary elections, both the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) very rarely introduce new candidates to run against incumbents. Thus, the current office-holder often becomes the sole possible nominee [2]. The approval rating of Congress ranks consistently below 20%, yet the congressional reelection rate remains over 95% because of the intrinsic advantages incumbents have over challengers, making it virtually impossible to vote them out of office. Term limits have the capacity to prevent individuals from becoming too powerful in Congress and ultimately better reflect the will of the American people. This also plays into a citizen’s constitutional right to vote by giving voters more choices at the ballot box and effectively eliminating the electoral monopoly generated by incumbent advantages. Allowing new individuals to run for office will give voters more federal autonomy and opportunities to create a personal choice.

Term limits are supported by a large majority of American demographic groups: an overwhelming 82% of Americans support a “Term Limits Amendment” for Congress, even crossing major party lines at 89% Republican, 83% Independent, and 76% Democratic, making the issue nonpartisan in itself [4]. The longstanding legislative resistance to congressional term limits stands in sharp contrast with private citizens’ strong support for them. The only serious primary opponents of term limits are incumbent politicians and the special interest groups that support them, particularly labor union groups. The extreme influence of lobbyists such as super Political Action Committees (PACs) and special interests serves as a threat to our democracy because these groups have held the financial power to sway elections and overpower the voices of others through absolutely exorbitant campaign donations. ​​According to “Open Secrets”, 97% of corporate PAC money goes to the incumbent candidates because they are often most established and easily-influenced – l obbyists and special interest groups already have them in their back pocket [5]. Term limits would effectively break the chokehold these groups have on the members of Congress, reducing the amount of money spent on incumbent candidates and thus making our elections more democratic and just. They would aid in reducing political corruption by severing politicians’ ties with lobbyists and bureaucrats, making ex-lawmakers overall less valuable. In doing so, public service is safeguarded from those who seek to exploit it for personal benefit.

 Time and time, year after year, we are represented by the same people. In 2020, both the House and Senate elections, 93% of incumbent candidates nationwide won their respective races. Such candidates have the name recognition, money, and power necessary to easily win these elections, however, they do little for their constituents and advance their own interests by gaining committee chairmanships and seniority. Bills and other legislatures are most often stalled in congressional election years when politicians are primarily focused on reelection rather than their duty to serve districts and address significant community matters. As it turns out, when members of Congress spend every waking moment of their given term consumed by the prospects of their own reelection, the concerns of the American people fall by the wayside. “As a result, all we are left with is unsolved problems and a $27 trillion national debt” [3]. When not fully invested in the matters of their own country, Congress members are forced to vote along party lines to ensure they are re-elected by their party. The introduction of term limits would create more acts of political courage. Term limits will allow the most capable lawmakers to have these positions while encouraging other members to do the same, creating a sense of ability over seniority. Term limits provide representatives who are closer to their constituents and who know they have a limited time in office to do the work they were sent there to do. They remain cognizant of the return they will make back home, where they too must live under the laws they have enacted.

Congressional incumbency is “ a paradigm of careerism, combining power, stature and influence with lavish benefits : a high salary; unparalleled business connections; limited working days; spectacular working conditions; periodic taxpayer-funded fact-finding trips; a sizable staff (that could include family and friends); exceptional medical, dental and retirement benefits; weakened insider trading rules; taxpayer funded legal expenses; the ability to moonlight at other jobs; free flights back and forth to the lawmaker’s home state; a family death gratuity; and free parking” [2]. Considering this it is truly no wonder that these guys make every effort to maintain their jobs for as long as humanly possible. Innovative public policy, which includes the addition of term limits, is the only way to address the most pressing of issues currently affecting our nation. How will we address problems such as foreign debt, climate change, immigration, etc. if the congressmen who have been unable to pass successful resolutions continue to remain in power? The solution lies in the succeeding and thus they must be rewarded an equal opportunity.

• Greenberg, Dan. “Term Limits: The Only Way to Clean up Congress.” The Heritage Foundation , Political Process, 1994, https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/term-limits-the-only-way-clean-congress
• Fulcrum, William NatbonyThe. “Ted Cruz Is Right! Congress Needs Term Limits.” Shelby News , 17 Aug. 2021, https://www.shelbynews.com/opinion/ted-cruz-is-right-congress-needs-term-limits/article_0bfe80b1-b6d9-5894-a39f-7e18376b8274.html
• “OpEd: We Need Congressional Term Limits.” Representative Jake LaTurner , 20 July 2021, https://laturner.house.gov/media/editorial/oped-we-need-congressional-term-limits
• “Suggestions on the Benefits of Term Limits.” U.S. Term Limits , 5 Aug. 2021, https://www.termlimits.com/suggestions/
• Markman, Allison. “Congress Needs Term Limits.” The Iris , 7 Sep. 2021, https://www.theirisnyc.com/post/congress-needs-term-limits

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Term Limits and Their Many Theories

• First Online: 01 November 2023

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• Jordan Butcher 2  

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Term limits were first introduced to the public as a fix for politicians that had become too far removed from constituents. While term limits were a popular subject well into the early 2000s, the research on term limits has declined. Regardless of the state in question or the time of the proposal, term limits remain a popular policy among the public and their merits will continue to be debated for another 20 years. Term limits were pushed as a solution to the careerism caused by professionalization, but their lasting effects are largely unknown. In “Navigating Term Limits,” Butcher explores the long-term effects of term limits on legislative careers.

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The Legislative Bills raw data are from LegiScan but have been restructured.

A member’s race is often difficult to confirm in the context of historical data and not wanting to mislabel someone, while there are hopes of updating this information in the future it is worth noting that there is missing data here, primarily for Florida, Maine, and Ohio.

Lower: Speaker, Speaker Pro Tem, Majority Leader, Assistant Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Assistant Minority Leader, and Majority/Minority Whips; Upper: President/President Pro Tem, Majority Leader, Assistant Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Assistant Minority Leader, and Majority/Minority Whips.

Given that members sometimes serve in multiple leadership positions during their service, there is the possibility of repeat individuals.

The raw data can be found here https://legiscan.com/datasets .

A list of the committees and states used in this additional analysis can be found in Table B.5 in Appendix B.

Nebraska has a slightly different format because they do not have party leaders and there is only one chamber.

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Butcher, J. (2023). Term Limits and Their Many Theories. In: Navigating Term Limits. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39423-2_1

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The Debate Over Term Limits for Congress

The Pros and Cons of Imposing Terms Limits for Congress

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The idea of imposing  term limits for Congress , or a mandatory restriction on how long members of the House and Senate can serve in office, has been debated by the public for centuries. There are pros and cons and strong opinions on both sides of the issue, perhaps a surprise, given the electorate's less-than-flattering opinion of their representatives in modern history.

Here are some questions and answers about term limits and the ongoing debate surrounding the idea, as well as a look at the pros and cons of term limits for Congress.

Are There Term Limits for Congress Now?

No. Members of the House of Representatives are elected for two years at a time and can serve an unlimited number of terms. Members of the Senate are elected for six years and also can serve an unlimited number of terms.

What's the Longest Anyone Has Served?

The longest anyone ever served in the Senate was 51 years, 5 months and 26 days, a record held by the late Robert C. Byrd.   The Democrat from West Virginia was in office from Jan. 3, 1959, through June 28, 2010.

The longest anyone ever served in the House is 59.06 years (21,572), a record held by U.S. Rep. John Dingell Jr.   The Democrat from Michigan was in office from 1955 to 2015.

Are There Term Limits for the President?

Presidents are restricted to only two four-year terms in the White House under the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which reads in part: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice."

Have There Been Attempts to Impose Term Limits on Congress?

There have been numerous attempts by some lawmakers to pass statutory term limits, but all of those proposals have been unsuccessful. Perhaps the most famous attempt at passing term limits came during the so-called Republican revolution when the GOP took control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections.

Term limits were a tenet of the Republican Contract with America. The contract called for a removal of career politicians through a first-ever vote on term limits as part of the Citizen Legislature Act. Term limits never came to fruition.

What about the Congressional Reform Act?

The Congressional Reform Act does not exist. It is a fiction passed off in email chains as a legitimate piece of legislation that would limit members of Congress to 12 years of service - either two six-year Senate terms or six two-year House terms.

What Are the Arguments in Favor of Term Limits?

Proponents of term limits argue that restricting the service of lawmakers prevents politicians from amassing too much power in Washington and becoming too alienated from their constituents.

The thinking is that many lawmakers view the work as a career and not a temporary assignment, and therefore spend much of their time posturing, raising money for their re-election campaigns and running for office instead of focusing on the important issues of the day. Those who favor term limits say they would remove the intense focus on politics and place it back on policy.

What Are the Arguments Against Term Limits?

The most common argument against term limits goes something like this: "We already have term limits. They're called elections." The primary case against term limits is that, indeed, our elected officials in the House and Senate must face their constituents every two years or every six years and get their approval.

Imposing term limits, opponents argue, would remove the power from voters in favor of an arbitrary law. For example, a popular lawmaker seen by her constituents as being effective and influential would want to re-elect her to Congress - but could be barred from doing so by a term-limit law.

" Longest-Serving Senators ." United States Senate, 2020. 

" Members with 40 Years or More Service ." History, Art & Archives, United States House of Representatives, 2020. 

• Why No Term Limits for Congress? The Constitution
• Why the Congressional Reform Act Will Never Pass
• Qualifications to be a US Representative
• The 22nd Amendment Sets Presidential Term Limits
• Representative Democracy: Definition, Pros, and Cons
• The Effects of the Seniority System on How Congress Works
• Residency Requirements for Congress
• How Many Years Can a President Serve in the White House?
• Do Members of Congress Ever Lose Re-Election?
• About the United States Senate
• Can You Recall a Member of Congress?
• Lame Duck Politicians
• The U.S. House of Representatives
• How Vacancies in the US Congress are Filled
• What Are Pro Forma Sessions in Congress?
• Basic Structure of the US Government

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Guest Essay

Why the Supreme Court Needs (Short) Term Limits

By Rosalind Dixon

Dr. Dixon is a law professor and testified before the Supreme Court Commission in July 2021.

The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court recently issued its final report , considering a range of procedural changes to how the court operates — most notably, the introduction of term limits for the justices. It pointed to 18-year terms as the leading model for such change. Ideally, it suggested, the states would ratify a constitutional amendment, but some of the commissioners believed this could also be attempted through an act of Congress.

In writings after the report, other members of the commission suggested that term limits do not go far enough to curb an institution they view as hyperpartisan and as having lost public trust. (The court’s approval rating has plummeted , according to Gallup, to its lowest point since 2000, when the poll began.) They said that what was needed was an increase in the size of the court — to rebalance it in a more bipartisan direction.

More is needed to address the court’s current composition and approach — not by expanding the size of the court but through even more powerful, that is, shorter, term limits.

Eighteen years is too long to address the crisis in Supreme Court functioning and legitimacy. We need term limits that start to bite much sooner — after 12 years.

Judicial term limits are a tool widely employed by constitutional designers around the world. Some countries follow the British model of judicial age limits. Others follow the German model of fixed judicial terms, but almost all — other than the United States — reject the idea of lifetime judicial tenure. And they do so by imposing term limits shorter than 18 years.

Perhaps most important, countries with strict judicial term limits include some of the most powerful and respected constitutional courts. In Germany, justices of the Federal Constitutional Court are appointed for a single, nonrenewable 12-year term. It is the same in South Africa. And in Colombia and Taiwan, constitutional justices are appointed for an eight-year term.

Like term limits for the presidency, judicial term limits have several salutary benefits. They encourage regular turnover on a court and the renewal of democratic consent and input into the process of judicial review.

They also discourage the appointment of young, hyperideological judges who are seen as having the capacity to stay on the court for the long run and shift it in a particular predetermined ideological direction.

The Supreme Court does a lot more than call balls and strikes. It decides a range of complex legal and political questions, where legal and political philosophy inevitably play a role.

But for a court to earn and retain the public’s trust, those decisions must reflect a judge’s considered individual moral and political judgments, not any fixed ideological position or platform. Justices must also engage in true collective deliberation, not factional conferencing based on ideological positions.

The Supreme Court still does this in a wide range of nonconstitutional cases and cases that involve complex federal statutes like the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. But it rarely engages in that kind of thoughtful, collective deliberation in cases that involve constitutional rights and freedoms. What is good enough for employment benefits should be good enough for constitutional rights.

Expanding the court (“court packing”) might be justified if things were to get worse. For now, it risks setting off a dynamic with dangers for democracy. It could result in a cycle of escalation: As soon as Republicans regain control of Washington, they would seek to expand the size of the court as well. This would create a court that is too large, is forced to sit in panels rather than en banc, or as a whole, and produces uneven and unpredictable results. This is basically the experience of the Supreme Court of India, which has about 30 justices.

And it would mean that would-be authoritarians around the world would feel licensed to do the same. They would be encouraged to engage in what David Landau of Florida State University College of Law and I have called a form of “abusive” borrowing — the adoption of court packing as a strategy to advance anti-democratic rather than democratic aims.

No reform is without risks. Judges with fixed terms might also start considering postjudicial opportunities in their judgments. This is especially true for lower court judges, which explains why current reform efforts are focused solely on the Supreme Court. But this seems like a minor risk for the Supreme Court itself: Most justices are likely to prefer international arbitration or law teaching to ambassadorships. And as the commission itself noted, at least if there was a constitutional amendment, there could be a bar on judges’ holding certain offices during a period after retirement.

Some might worry that the court could turn out to be too responsive to politics under a 12-year term. This was the main reason the commission itself preferred 18-year judicial terms. But the composition of such a court would remain constant only for a single presidential term. And the details would matter: All judges could be appointed during the final two years of a president’s term, when there is less likely to be unified government and when a president’s choices would affect only the next president. This could also be accompanied by changes to how the Senate vets and votes on nominees.

The biggest risk is that the reform will simply fail to get off the ground. Judicial term limits can be adopted by statute or constitutional amendment. If adopted by statute, it would come before the Supreme Court for review — and the court might well reject the argument that it is compatible with Article III, which entrenches guarantees of judicial independence.

That makes constitutional amendment the safest path for any reform effort — but it is also the most difficult path. Article V provides that any successful amendment requires a supermajority in Congress and among the states. And if an amendment were a serious possibility, one might put a range of reforms — broader changes to how justices are appointed, electoral districts are drawn and campaign finance is regulated — ahead of term-limit reform in the list of structural changes likely to improve American law and politics.

Reforming an institution like the Supreme Court is tricky: Too rapid and radical an approach risks undermining all the institutional respect and capital it has built over centuries. Too moderate a response risks leaving it to face a slow decline in institutional integrity and public respect.

But especially if they could be adopted by statute, 12-year staggered judicial term limits might just help thread that needle — and contribute to meaningful yet restrained change to an institution that is in urgent need of it.

Rosalind Dixon is a law professor and director of the Gilbert + Tobin Center of Public Law at U.N.S.W. Sydney. She is the author, with David Landau, of “ Abusive Constitutional Borrowing : Legal Globalization and the Subversion of Liberal Democracy.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram .

An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the purpose of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court report. It was to consider reforms to the Supreme Court, not call for reforms to it.

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Feature   Jul 29, 2022

How to design term limits for the Supreme Court

Scholars conclude terms limits would help restore ideological balance to the nation’s highest court

Reimagining Democracy Program

Democratic Reform

Writing in the Southern California Law Review , HKS Professor of Public Policy Maya Sen, along with University of Chicago’s Adam Chilton, and Daniel Epps and Kyle Rozema of Washington University in St. Louis, provide an assessment of the impact that various term limit proposals would have on the composition of the Supreme Court.

As public dissatisfaction with the Court has grown, so too has the chorus of reform proposals that would fundamentally reshape how justices are appointed. “Many have found the case for term limits persuasive: commentators, politicians across the political spectrum, and even the American public have all expressed support for term limits,” write Sen and her co-authors in Designing Supreme Court Term Limits . Term limits, proponents argue, would prevent Justices from retiring strategically in order to try to maintain their party’s ideological advantages on the Court.

While term limit proposals differ in important ways, such as how the transition to the new system would work, most would have Justices serve for eighteen years with their tenures staggered so that two appointments would be made each presidential term. Although term limits appear to enjoy broad bipartisan support and also to be gaining traction among some on Capitol Hill, many discussions have been silent on many key design decisions, such as what would happen should the Senate refuse to consider a president’s nomination. Further, few have studied how this proposal would affect the actual composition of the Supreme Court.

The authors believe there are four design choices for term limit proposals that policymakers should consider when drawing up eighteen-year term-limit plans:

• First, how a plan handles the transition from the old system to the new can have significant implications.
• Second, how the plan deals with unexpected vacancies due to deaths or early retirements can undermine or advance some of the goals of reform.
• Third, plans should include some provision for dealing with the Senate impasse, given that obstinance by the Senate could unravel a reform designed to equalize appointments across presidencies.
• Fourth, policymakers should consider whether a proposal should include provisions meant to address the problems and potential conflicts of interest that may arise as justices near the end of their terms.

Sen, Chilton, Epps, and Rozema find that term limits are likely to produce dramatic changes in the ideological composition of the Court. While life tenure ostensibly insulates justices from political pressure, the authors argue that “it also results in unpredictable deaths and strategic retirements determining the timing of Court vacancies.” The Supreme Court, for example, has had extreme ideological imbalance for sixty percent of the time since President Franklin Roosevelt’s effort to pack the Court. Any of the major term-limits proposals floated in recent years would have reduced the amount of time with extreme imbalance by almost half. “If the goal is to prevent the Supreme Court from becoming ideologically extreme, then term limits would probably do a very good job with that,” added Sen.

Written by Daniel Harsha, Associate Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives

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Term limits for Congress are wildly popular. But most experts say they'd be a bad idea

Ashley Lopez

Congressional term limits are really popular with voters. With experts, not so much. Catie Dull/NPR hide caption

Congressional term limits are really popular with voters. With experts, not so much.

Frustration with America's political system has led to some renewed interest in setting term limits for lawmakers, though it's an idea broadly opposed by experts.

Voters have long been supportive of hard caps on how long someone can be in office, but recent infighting among Republicans over who should be speaker of the U.S. House and health issues among aging members of Congress have reignited calls for federal term limits. ( Ethics scandals at the U.S. Supreme Court have led to separate calls for judicial term limits.)

A Pew Research Center survey this summer found a whopping 87% of Americans say they support congressional term limits.

And it's one of those rare issues that appeals to people from across the political spectrum, with Democratic and Republican respondents in the Pew poll backing the policy in equal measure.

This story is part of a series of reports on alternatives to how Americans vote and elect their political leaders. Click here for more NPR voting stories .

Casey Burgat, the director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University, says that's not surprising.

"There's a lot of dysfunction in our politics, particularly within Congress," he says. "Congress is one of the most unpopular institutions we have. And so when we have something unpopular, it makes a lot of sense to refresh the people who serve in that institution."

The idea has over the years been proposed by Democratic and Republican candidates alike, including then- President Donald Trump . And the appeal for term limits has only grown recently, says Nick Tomboulides, executive director of an advocacy group called U.S. Term Limits.

"When you're talking about the average American and why 87% of them support term limits, it's the storytelling," he says. "It's these high-profile examples that you see of people who have either lost control, they have cognitive decline ... [and] they're making the most important decisions in our country."

The incumbency advantage

Tomboulides also points to stories of lawmakers staying in office despite scandals and ethics violations.

And he blames all of this on the power of incumbency.

"Ninety-seven percent of incumbents get reelected ," he says. "Last election cycle, 100% of Senate incumbents on the ballot got reelected. Not a single sitting U.S. senator was defeated last cycle. And so from a democracy standpoint, from an election standpoint, our elections are not very democratic."

While the incumbency advantage is perhaps the most popular argument in support of term limits, academics who study this issue say it isn't as cut and dry as many people think it is.

Burgat says there are multiple factors that make it easier for incumbents to win elections, including redistricting. Most members of Congress are in uncompetitive seats drawn to particularly favor their party.

"Over 90% of our elections are uncompetitive, meaning we know essentially what party is going to win those elections, no matter what candidates are running," he says. "And so the faster you turn those politicians over, the more often you're going to have to replace them."

The U.S. has a 'primary problem,' say advocates who call for new election systems

What research has found.

Burgat says term limits don't solve the core problems in American politics that make people dislike Congress — things like gerrymandering, political polarization and the influence of special interests, as well as money in politics.

In fact, academics have broadly found that the effects of term limits are often either mixed or fall short of what proponents claim.

For example, supporters have argued term limits reduce polarization because lawmakers will be forced to be beholden to their constituents over their political parties. However, researchers found that term limits actually increased polarization in some cases.

Burgat says there is also evidence of some unintended consequences in the 16 states that have term limits for their state legislators.

Institutional knowledge

Susan Valdes is a Democratic state lawmaker in Florida, which is one of those 16 states.

"I've seen how the term limits have affected the policies at a state level and how much longer it takes to get good policies done," she says.

As a member of the Florida House, Valdes only gets a maximum of four two-year terms in office. She says she thinks of every term like one school year.

'"I'm going into my next election [thinking it] will be for my senior year," Valdes says. "And these six years in the Florida House have gone by so fast that really and truly the first two sessions, you're really just getting to know the ropes, understand how the lay of the land works, if you will, in that arena."

Florida state Reps. Susan Valdes, left, and Randy Fine high-five after debating a bill during a legislative session on March 8, 2022, in Tallahassee, Fla. Wilfredo Lee/AP hide caption

She says this is the case for pretty much everyone. Valdes says there's not a way for someone to train to become a legislator before getting into office.

Burgat says term limits often force people out of the job when they just start becoming effective and knowledgeable.

"And so when you term-limit someone," he says, "you are effectively cutting out their incentive to invest in learning how to do the job, to delve into policy issues at the depth that they need to and to really dive into how the procedures work, which just takes years. Because, again, there's no training ground for this. There's no training program."

But Tomboulides says he doesn't think lawmakers are spending their time gaining institutional knowledge, even when they have an unlimited amount of time in office. He says there is evidence that members of Congress spend most of their time raising money for their reelection.

"They're not studying the issues," Tomboulides says. "They're not reading these thousand-page bills because they're so focused on getting reelected. They're so focused on keeping the job rather than actually doing the job."

He says if politicians knew they had a limited time in office they would spend more time working for their constituents, instead of focusing on their next election.

But Valdes says she doesn't think term limits have created better legislators in her state.

"What I find is that we wind up trying to create legislation like we check our spaghetti," she says. "Let's see if it sticks to the wall and dinner's ready."

And she says what usually happens is that lawmakers have to go back during the next session and fix the unintended issues created by new policies.

"But in the meantime, what has happened is that people have been affected by those unintended consequences," Valdes says. "And that's where for me, the fairness, the equity, the righteousness of our policies and the intent of the laws that we pass sometimes get misguided."

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Power of special interests.

Some academics have found evidence that term limits give special interests more influence , because lobbyists and legislative staff have the bulk of the institutional knowledge in state legislatures.

Burgat says he also thinks term limits don't force lawmakers to be more beholden to their voters.

"In reality, studies have shown that term-limited lawmakers behave differently, that when you sever that electoral connection, when they're no longer dependent on voters to remain in office, then they start looking out for No. 1," he says. "They start looking out for themselves in a lot of different ways."

And that includes cozying up to lobbyists to line up their next job. Burgat says a lot of lawmakers don't want to forfeit all the relationships, institutional knowledge and policy expertise they gained in office.

But Tomboulides says he is not convinced that term limits equate to a big win for lobbyists and special interests. He says that's because, in his experience, lobbyists are some of the biggest opponents to his group's efforts.

"I've never had a lobbyist knock on my door and say, 'Hey, I really want to help you guys get term limits,' " he says. "It never happens. But I always have lobbyists opposing me."

Tomboulides says the fact that there is still debate about whether Congress should have term limits just shows the outsized influence that politicians have.

"Because we don't debate other 87% issues," he says. "We don't debate whether, like, my town should have a park or whether we should have, like, regular trash pickup — other 87, 90% issues. We just say this is what the American people want, this is what we're going to do. But term limits are imposed so strongly by the permanent political class in Washington."

And in the end, it is largely up to members of Congress to impose these limits on themselves.

A 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling went further to say that even if members of Congress managed to impose term limits on themselves, it could be ruled unconstitutional . That means congressional term limits might have to pass through a constitutional amendment, which is an exceedingly more difficult hurdle to clear.

• voting stories

Term Limits

• Published: Jan 25 2024
• 15 minute read

About the Author

Anthony Fowler is a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. Fowler is currently the Co-editor in Chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the co-author (with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita) of Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2021). Fowler earned his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and completed undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anthony is also the Series Editor for the 2024 Democracy Reform Primer Series.

Promise of the Reform

"Too many of our incumbents are incompetent, corrupt, ideologically extreme, or out of touch, yet the vast majority of incumbents are regularly reelected. Term limits would “throw the rascals out” and bring new blood into office."

Key Takeaways from the Research

Term limits would remove from office high-quality elected officials who the voters like.

Term limits would reduce the incentives of elected officials to work hard and please the voters.

Most incumbent success is attributable to the popularity of the candidates, not the institutional advantages of incumbency.

Empirically, term limits appear to reduce economic growth and increase ideological polarization.

There still are reasons to support term limits, particularly when our elections and governing institutions do not perform as intended, but there may be better solutions to these problems that do not sacrifice our best elected officials or remove their incentives to do a good job.

Important Questions that the Research Does Not Answer

What effects do term limits have on the kinds of people who decide to run for office?

To what extent do elected officials improve with experience (or decline with age)?

How do term limits change the ways that elected officials are able to negotiate, coordinate, and compromise with others?

Introduction

"If entrenched incumbents are the problem, we can 'throw the rascals out' by making them legally ineligible to run for reelection."

Most Americans are unhappy with their current political system, which includes many entrenched incumbent politicians who seem out of touch, hold extreme views, and face little serious electoral competition. Term limits are a popular solution to this problem. If entrenched incumbents are the problem, we can “throw the rascals out” by making them legally ineligible to run for reelection.

Term limits are currently in place for U.S. presidents, the governors of 36 states, the state legislators of 15 states, and many other state and local elected officials. Term limits are not in place for member of the U.S. Congress, although polls suggest that the majority of Americans would prefer such a reform. And Democrats in Congress recently put forward a bill that would impose term limits on Supreme Court justices.

In assessing the theoretical and empirical research on the likely effects of term limits, his primer discusses the following issues:

the theory of electoral accountability, which identifies two negative implications of term limits (they remove from office the high-quality elected officials that voters like, and they reduce their incentive to do a good job), theoretical arguments in favor of term limits, focusing on perverse electoral incentives and bad institutions,

empirical evidence on explanations for incumbent success, the benefits of electoral accountability, and the effects of term limits that have already been implemented, and

what the available research means for the promise of term limits and what open questions remain unanswered.

Theoretical Research on Term Limits

"Ask yourself, would a company be better or worse off if it was forced to fire its successful CEO at the end of the year?"

One of the best arguments in favor of democratic elections comes from the theory of electoral accountability. 1  In short, the idea is that voters learn about political candidates—often by observing past performance—and vote for the one who they believe will produce the best outcomes in the future.

This theory highlights two benefits of democratic elections. The first of these is that, when multiple candidates run for office, the voters can select the candidate they believe is best.  Best  here incorporates all of the different factors that voters care about.

For example, voters might care about honesty, competence, ideological alignment, and they might select the candidate who provides the best combination of these attributes.

The second benefit is that incumbents who would like to be reelected want to convince voters that they are better than the alternatives. Again, better refers to all of the factors that voters care about. So an incumbent who wants to convince voters they are better than the alternatives will likely have an incentive to work harder, engage in less corruption, select policies that reflect public opinion, etc. Throughout this primer, I will refer to these two theoretical mechanisms as electoral selection and incentives.

What are the implications of term limits for electoral selection and incentives? First, term limits mitigate the benefits of electoral selection by making one of the potential candidates ineligible. Worse yet, it’s not just any candidate that’s ineligible. It’s the incumbent who won the last election (and possibly more before that). If the voters previously selected the best candidate, then the term-limited incumbent is probably better than the average candidate and has a better-than- random chance of being the best candidate again. Ask yourself, would a company be better or worse off if it was forced to fire its successful CEO at the end of the year?

Second, term limits mitigate electoral incentives. If an elected official is term-limited, she has less incentive to impress the voters. Compared to the scenario where she is seeking reelection, a term- limited incumbent will likely not work as hard, be more likely to engage in corruption, and be more likely to implement the policies that she likes as opposed to the policies that the voters like. Again, ask yourself, would a successful CEO do a better or worse job if she were told that, no matter how well the company performs, she is going to be fired at the end of the year?

Therefore, from a theoretical standpoint, term limits have at least two troubling effects: they take away an option from voters that they have previously selected, and they reduce the incentive for incumbents to work hard to please the voters.

"Term limits take away an option from voters that they have previously selected and they reduce the incentive for incumbents to work hard to please the voters."

So what are the theoretical reasons to support term limits? One of the previous arguments can be flipped on its head if we believe the effects of electoral incentives are counterproductive. And there are good reasons to worry about perverse electoral incentives. Voters are imperfectly informed about the actions of politicians and the effects of different policies, and this can theoretically distort electoral incentives away from what would be best for voters.

There are a number of examples of perverse electoral incentives. For example, in their effort to please voters, politicians might divert their efforts toward visible policy efforts— like invasive security screening at airports—and away from less visible but perhaps more effective policy efforts—like intelligence gathering. 2  The same logic applies to policies that have immediate, visible benefits—like public beautification or direct cash assistance—as opposed to policies that have long-term but less immediately visible benefits— like environmental regulation or pension reform.

Politicians might worry that voters are much more likely to learn about one kind of mistake—like letting a dangerous criminal free—versus another kind of mistake—like over-incarceration, which could bias policy decisions. 3

If voters prefer one policy but politicians have private information that tells them another policy is better, reelection-motivated politicians will have an incentive to pander and do what voters think they prefer rather than what will make voters better off. 4

Politicians might also spend public funds in ways that maximize their reelection chances rather than doing what is most efficient or equitable. 5

Theoretically, term limits could mitigate these concerns by removing the perverse incentive for elected officials to cater their decisions to voters’ stated preferences rather than to the best policy outcomes. However, term-limited politicians won’t necessarily do what’s best for voters in the absence of electoral incentives. Rather than exerting more effort on long-term problems, term-limited incumbents might just exert less effort overall. Rather than pandering to the voters, the politicians might just implement the policy best for them, which need not be the best policy for voters.

Another reason to favor term limits is that voters might dislike the political system but feel like they have no choice but to reelect their incumbent given that flawed system.

Consider, for example, a corrupt legislator who has seniority in the legislature, chairs an important committee, and brings a lot of government spending home to her district. The voters might feel like they have no choice but to reelect their incumbent even if they dislike her, lest they have a rookie legislator who won’t bring home the bacon. 6  The same logic would apply to an incumbent who is loyal to a political machine, an incumbent who votes in overly partisan ways to stay in favor with party leadership, or an incumbent who devotes too much attention to constituency service rather than policy.

In this line of thinking, voters from different legislative districts face a collective action problem. Perhaps we would all be better off if we could get rid of our entrenched incumbents and start anew, but given the current system, no district has an incentive to replace their entrenched incumbent. Term limits are a potential solution to this problem because they would force incumbents to leave office before becoming too entrenched. Of course, there are counterarguments here as well. Term-limited incumbents will have less incentive to focus on constituency service and pork- barrel spending or ingratiate themselves with party leaders, but that doesn’t mean they’ll spend more effort on policies that benefit the public.

Empirical Research on Term Limits

"Term-limited U.S. governors tax and spend more than those who are eligible to run for another term."

Do electoral selection and incentives behave as predicted by theory? Coincidentally, term limits provide one of the best opportunities to answer this question. Several research papers have explicitly tested whether elected officials perform differently when they are term limited. For example, one paper found that term-limited U.S. governors tax and spend more than those who are eligible to run for another term. 7  One problem with this study is that we don’t know whether more taxing and spending is, on net, a good or bad thing. The answer surely varies from person to person, depending at least in part on their ideology. Another problem is that this test conflates the effects of electoral selection and electoral incentives. On one hand, term-limited governors have less electoral incentive, so we would theoretically expect them to work less hard, but typically, the reason they are term-limited is that they won several recent elections, so they are positively selected, which means we would theoretically expect them to be more competent.

"Governors who won two elections produce higher economic growth and lower borrowing costs than governors who only won one election."

Another study addressed these concerns by using better outcome measures like state economic growth and state borrowing costs and by using a clever design that disentangles the effects of selection and incentives. 8  Specifically, it takes advantage of the fact that several states have historically switched from a one-term limit for governors to a two-term limit, which allows them to more cleanly estimate an incentive effect by comparing first-termers who are and are not term-limited. Moreover, they can also estimate a selection effect by comparing second-termers who are term-limited to first-termers who are term-limited. Interestingly, they find that both factors are quite important. Holding constant whether the governor is term-limited, governors who won two elections produce higher economic growth and lower borrowing costs than governors who only won one election. And holding constant the number of terms served, governors who are not term-limited produce higher economic growth and lower borrowing costs than those who are term-limited. So both electoral selection and incentives have clear benefits for voter welfare, and term limits short circuit both forces. U.S. state legislatures, where more data and more measures of productivity exist, have also been used to test for the effects of term limits on electoral incentives. 9  Comparing the same elected official when they are or are not term-limited, it was found that when legislators are term-limited, they sponsor fewer bills, are less productive on committees, and are absent for more floor votes.

"Term limits causes legislators to lose influence relative to staff, bureaucrats, and governors and to become less professional, less innovative, and less specialized."

What about the fact that so many incumbents are reelected? Doesn’t this undermine electoral accountability? Not necessarily. If incumbents get reelected precisely because they were positively selected to begin with and because they are doing a good job in office, their high reelection rates could be a result of electoral accountability working as it should. In one of my own studies on incumbent success in U.S. elections, I estimate that 64 percent of the electoral success of incumbents is attributable to selection on party, 12 percent is attributable to selection on other candidate characteristics, and 24 percent is attributable to the direct benefits of officeholding. 10  So most of the success of incumbents is attributable to positive selection rather than the institutional benefits that incumbents accrue by virtue of being incumbents.

Instead of comparing term-limited and non-term- limited elected officials within the same system, several studies more directly estimate the net effects of term limits by studying what happens when state legislatures implement term limits. For example, it has been estimated that state legislative term limits increase polarization between elected officials. 11  Since most voters are much more ideologically moderate than their elected officials, 12  this means that the average legislator under term limits is likely doing a worse job representing the preferences of her constituents.

"State legislative term limits increase polarization between elected officials."

Using a similar design to the state legislative term study, I find suggestive evidence that state legislative term limits hinder economic growth. 13  This evidence is only suggestive because states tend to implement term limits when their economy is already in decline, so it is hard to know whether the observed declines are because of term limits or just a continuation of the decline that may have led to the reform. But in conjunction with the previously discussed results of Alt and colleagues, the evidence suggests that term limits hinder economic prosperity.

Further evidence suggests that the implementation of term limits causes legislators to lose influence relative to staff, bureaucrats, and governors and to become less professional, less innovative, and less specialized. 14  If we dislike entrenched legislators, it is not obvious that we are better off with more powerful, more entrenched bureaucrats and legislative staff who are not electorally accountable.

"To the extent that we are worried about perverse electoral incentives and poorly performing institutions, there are likely better solutions and reforms that do not sacrifice the desirable aspects of electoral accountability."

On net, theory and evidence from political science suggest that term limits would likely reduce the quality and competence of elected officials while also reducing their incentives to work hard on behalf of voters. This likely means that voters will be worse represented and see worse policy outcomes.

To the extent that we are worried about perverse electoral incentives and poorly performing institutions, there are likely better solutions and reforms that do not sacrifice the desirable aspects of electoral accountability. For example, we could consider:

Campaign finance reforms to reduce the time that elected officials spend raising money and increase the time that they spend on policy,

Ballot access reforms that would increase electoral competition and reduce the power of political machines and party leaders,

Term limits for legislative leadership positions,and legislative reforms (including committee selection procedures) that reward accomplishments rather than seniority.

Existing research does not definitively answer all questions about term limits. Some particularly important outstanding ones include:

How do term limits change the kind of candidates who run for office? We have evidence that high- quality, relatively moderate candidates are more likely to run when the value of holding office is higher, 15  and term limits would seem to reduce the value of holding office, but we have little direct evidence on this question.

To what extent do elected officials improve with experience (or decline with age)? If politicians improve with experience, this is another reason that term limits might reduce the quality of representation. Unfortunately, estimating returns to experience (or age effects) is difficult because everyone serving in a legislature together gains experience (and age) at the same rate over time, and there could be other things changing over time. New (or younger) legislators might differ from seasoned legislators for reasons other than just experience.

How do term limits influence the ability of elected officials to negotiate, coordinate, and compromise with others? Long-term relationships might be important for the policymaking process. If an elected official will soon be term limited, perhaps other officials and bureaucrats have less incentive to work with or try to please them. This might partly explain why term limits cause staff and bureaucrats to gain influence relative to elected officials.

To what extent do electoral incentives lead politicians to do things that are, on net, good or bad for voters? Just now, existing research does not provide a strong basis for quantifying the perverse effects of electoral incentives and weigh them against the desirable effects of elections.

1  Ashworth, Scott, “Electoral Accountability: Recent Theoretical and Empirical Work,” Annual Review of Political Science 15 (2012):183-201

2   Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, “Politics and the Suboptimal Provision of Counterterror,” International Organization 61 (2007):9-36

3   Huber, Gregory A. and Gordon, Sandford C., “Accountability and Coercion: Is Justice Blind when It Runs for Office?” American Journal of Political Science 48(2) (2004):247-263

4   Canes-Wrone, Brandice, Herron, Michael C., and Shotts, Kenneth W., “Leadership and Pandering: A Theory of Executive Policymaking,” American Journal of Political Science 45(3) (2001):532-550.

5   Dixit, Avinash and Londregan, John, “Redistributive Politics and Economic Efficiency,” American Political Science Review 89(4) (1995):856-866

Gordon, Sanford C., “Politicizing Agency Spending Authority: Lessons from a Bush-era Scandal,” American Political Science Review 105(4) (2011):717- 734

6  McKelvey, Richard D. and Riezman, Raymond, “Seniority in Legislatures,” American Political Science Review 86(4) (1992):951-965

7   Besley, Timothy and Case, Anne, “Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(3) (1995): 769-798

8   Alt, James, Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, and Rose, Shanna, “Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from U.S. Term Limits,” Journal of Politics 73(1) (2011):171-186

9  Fouirnaies, Alexander and Hall, Andrew B., “How Do Electoral Incentives Affect Legislator Behavior? Evidence U.S. State Legislatures,” American Political Science Review 116(2) (2022):662-676.

10  Fowler, Anthony, “What Explains Incumbent Success? Disentangling Selection on Party, Selection on Candidate Characteristics, and Office- Holding Benefits,” Quarterly Journal Political Science 11(3) (2016):313-338

11  Olson, Michael P. and Rogowski, Jon C., “Legislative Term Limits and Polarization,” Journal of Politics 82(2) (2020):572-586

12 Bafumi, Joseph and Herron, Michael C., “Leapfrog Representation and Extremism: A Study of American Voters and Their Members in Congress,” American Political Science Review 104(3) (2010):519-542

13 Fowler, Anthony, “The Case for More Incumbents,” Conference on Electoral Reform, University of Chicago, (2017)

14 Carey, John M., Niemi, Richard G., and Powell, Lynda W., “The Effects of Term Limits on State Legislatures,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 23(2) (1998):271-300

Kousser, Thad, Term Limits and the Dismantling of State Legislative Professionalism (Cambridge University Press 2005).

15 Hall, Andrew B., Who Wants to Run? How the Devaluing of Political Office Drives Polarization (University of Chicago Press, 2019)

About the Democracy Reform Primer Series

Narrowing the gap between research and public dialogue, the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government's Democracy Reform Primers responsibly advance conversations and strategy about proposed changes to our political institutions. Each Primer focuses on a particular reform, clarifies its intended purposes, and critically evaluates what the best available research has to say about it. The Primers do not serve as a platform for either authors or the Center to advance their own independent views about the reform; to the contrary, they serve as an objective and authoritative guide about what we actually know—and what we still don’t know—about the likely effects of adopting prominent reforms to our political institutions.

In some instances, the available evidence may clearly support the claims of a reform’s advocates. In other instances, it may cut against them. And in still others, the scholarly literature may be mixed, indeterminate, or altogether silent. Without partisan judgment or ideological pretense, and grounded in objective scholarship, these Primers set the record straight by clarifying what can be said about democracy reforms with confidence and what requires further study.

About the Series Editor

Anthony Fowler  is a Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. Fowler is currently the Co-editor in Chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the co-author (with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita) of Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2021). Fowler earned his Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and completed undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Testing the limit : term limits and their unintended consequences

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Developing Strong Thesis Statements

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The thesis statement or main claim must be debatable

An argumentative or persuasive piece of writing must begin with a debatable thesis or claim. In other words, the thesis must be something that people could reasonably have differing opinions on. If your thesis is something that is generally agreed upon or accepted as fact then there is no reason to try to persuade people.

Example of a non-debatable thesis statement:

This thesis statement is not debatable. First, the word pollution implies that something is bad or negative in some way. Furthermore, all studies agree that pollution is a problem; they simply disagree on the impact it will have or the scope of the problem. No one could reasonably argue that pollution is unambiguously good.

Example of a debatable thesis statement:

This is an example of a debatable thesis because reasonable people could disagree with it. Some people might think that this is how we should spend the nation's money. Others might feel that we should be spending more money on education. Still others could argue that corporations, not the government, should be paying to limit pollution.

Another example of a debatable thesis statement:

In this example there is also room for disagreement between rational individuals. Some citizens might think focusing on recycling programs rather than private automobiles is the most effective strategy.

The thesis needs to be narrow

Although the scope of your paper might seem overwhelming at the start, generally the narrower the thesis the more effective your argument will be. Your thesis or claim must be supported by evidence. The broader your claim is, the more evidence you will need to convince readers that your position is right.

Example of a thesis that is too broad:

There are several reasons this statement is too broad to argue. First, what is included in the category "drugs"? Is the author talking about illegal drug use, recreational drug use (which might include alcohol and cigarettes), or all uses of medication in general? Second, in what ways are drugs detrimental? Is drug use causing deaths (and is the author equating deaths from overdoses and deaths from drug related violence)? Is drug use changing the moral climate or causing the economy to decline? Finally, what does the author mean by "society"? Is the author referring only to America or to the global population? Does the author make any distinction between the effects on children and adults? There are just too many questions that the claim leaves open. The author could not cover all of the topics listed above, yet the generality of the claim leaves all of these possibilities open to debate.

Example of a narrow or focused thesis:

In this example the topic of drugs has been narrowed down to illegal drugs and the detriment has been narrowed down to gang violence. This is a much more manageable topic.

We could narrow each debatable thesis from the previous examples in the following way:

Narrowed debatable thesis 1:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just the amount of money used but also how the money could actually help to control pollution.

Narrowed debatable thesis 2:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just what the focus of a national anti-pollution campaign should be but also why this is the appropriate focus.

Qualifiers such as " typically ," " generally ," " usually ," or " on average " also help to limit the scope of your claim by allowing for the almost inevitable exception to the rule.

Types of claims

Claims typically fall into one of four categories. Thinking about how you want to approach your topic, or, in other words, what type of claim you want to make, is one way to focus your thesis on one particular aspect of your broader topic.

Claims of fact or definition: These claims argue about what the definition of something is or whether something is a settled fact. Example:

Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that one person, thing, or event caused another thing or event to occur. Example:

Claims about value: These are claims made of what something is worth, whether we value it or not, how we would rate or categorize something. Example:

Claims about solutions or policies: These are claims that argue for or against a certain solution or policy approach to a problem. Example:

Which type of claim is right for your argument? Which type of thesis or claim you use for your argument will depend on your position and knowledge of the topic, your audience, and the context of your paper. You might want to think about where you imagine your audience to be on this topic and pinpoint where you think the biggest difference in viewpoints might be. Even if you start with one type of claim you probably will be using several within the paper. Regardless of the type of claim you choose to utilize it is key to identify the controversy or debate you are addressing and to define your position early on in the paper.

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II. Getting Started

2.5 Writing Thesis Statements

Kathryn Crowther; Lauren Curtright; Nancy Gilbert; Barbara Hall; Tracienne Ravita; and Kirk Swenson

To be effective, all support in an essay must work together to convey a central point; otherwise, an essay can fall into the trap of being out of order and confusing. Just as a topic sentence focuses and unifies a single paragraph, the thesis statement focuses and unifies an entire essay. This statement is like a signpost that signals the essay’s destination; it tells the reader the point you want to make in your essay, while the essay itself supports that point.

Because writing is not a linear process, you may find that the best thesis statement develops near the end of your first draft. However, creating a draft or working thesis early in the writing project helps give the drafting process clear direction. You should form your thesis before you begin to organize an essay, but you may find that it needs revision as the essay develops.

A thesis is not just a topic, but rather the writer’s comment or interpretation of the question or subject. For whatever topic you select (for example, school uniforms, social networking), you must ask yourself, “What do I want to say about it?” Asking and then answering this question is vital to forming a thesis that is precise, forceful, and confident.

In the majority of essays, a thesis is one sentence long and appears toward the end of the introductory paragraph. It is specific and focuses on one to three points of a single idea—points that are able to be demonstrated in the body paragraphs. It forecasts the content of the essay and suggests how you will organize your information. Remember that a thesis statement does not summarize an issue but rather dissects it.

Working Thesis Statements

A strong thesis statement must have the following qualities:

• It must be arguable.  A thesis statement must state a point of view or judgment about a topic. An established fact is not considered arguable.
• It must be supportable.  The thesis statement must contain a point of view that can be supported with evidence (reasons, facts, examples).
• It must be specific. A thesis statement must be precise enough to allow for a coherent argument and remain focused on the topic.

Examples of Appropriate Thesis Statements

• Closing all American borders for a period of five years is one solution that will tackle illegal immigration.
• Compared to an absolute divorce, no-fault divorce is less expensive, promotes fairer settlements, and reflects a more realistic view of the causes for marital breakdown.
• Exposing children from an early age to the dangers of drug abuse is a sure method of preventing future drug addicts.
• In today’s crumbling job market, a high school diploma is not significant enough education to land a stable, lucrative job.
• The societal and personal struggles of Troy Maxson in the play Fences symbolize the challenges of black males who lived through segregation and integration in the United States.

Pitfalls to Avoid

A thesis is weak when it is simply a declaration of your subject or a description of what you will discuss in your essay.

Weak Thesis Statement Example

My paper will explain why imagination is more important than knowledge.

A thesis is weak when it makes an unreasonable or outrageous claim or insults the opposing side.

Religious radicals across America are trying to legislate their Puritanical beliefs by banning required high school books.

A thesis is weak when it contains an obvious fact or something that no one can disagree with or provides a dead end.

Advertising companies use sex to sell their products.

A thesis is weak when the statement is too broad.

The life of Abraham Lincoln was long and challenging.

Ways to Revise Your Thesis

Your thesis statement begins as a working thesis statement, an indefinite statement that you make about your topic early in the writing process for the purpose of planning and guiding your writing. Working thesis statements often become stronger as you gather information and develop new ideas and reasons for those ideas. Revision helps you strengthen your thesis so that it matches what you have expressed in the body of the paper.

You can cut down on irrelevant aspects and revise your thesis by taking the following steps:

• Pinpoint and replace all non specific words, such as people, everything, society, or life, with more precise words in order to reduce any vagueness.

Pinpoint and Replace Example

Working thesis:  Young people have to work hard to succeed in life.

Revised thesis:  Recent college graduates must have discipline and persistence in order to find and maintain a stable job in which they can use, and be appreciated for, their talents.

Explanation:  The original includes too broad a range of people and does not define exactly what success entails. By replacing those general words like people and work hard , the writer can better focus their research and gain more direction in their writing. The revised thesis makes a more specific statement about success and what it means to work hard.

• Clarify ideas that need explanation by asking yourself questions that narrow your thesis.

Clarify Example

Working thesis:  The welfare system is a joke.

Revised thesis:  The welfare system keeps a socioeconomic class from gaining employment by alluring members of that class with unearned income, instead of programs to improve their education and skill sets.

Explanation:  A joke means many things to many people. Readers bring all sorts of backgrounds and perspectives to the reading process and would need clarification for a word so vague. This expression may also be too informal for the selected audience. By asking questions, the writer can devise a more precise and appropriate explanation for joke and more accurately defines their stance, which will better guide the writing of the essay.

• Replace any linking verbs with action verbs. Linking verbs are forms of the verb to be , a verb that simply states that a situation exists.

Replace with Action Verbs Example

Working thesis:  Kansas City school teachers are not paid enough.

Revised thesis:  The Kansas City legislature cannot afford to pay its educators, resulting in job cuts and resignations in a district that sorely needs highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

Explanation:  The linking verb in this working thesis statement is the word are . Linking verbs often make thesis statements weak because they do not express action. Rather, they connect words and phrases to the second half of the sentence. Readers might wonder, “Why are they not paid enough?” But this statement does not compel them to ask many more questions.

• Who is not paying the teachers enough?
• How much is considered “enough”?
• What is the problem?
• What are the results?
• Omit any general claims that are hard to support.

Omit General Claims Example

Working thesis:  Today’s teenage girls are too sexualized.

Revised thesis: Teenage girls who are captivated by the sexual images on the internet and social media are conditioned to believe that a woman’s worth depends on her sensuality, a feeling that harms their self-esteem and behavior.

Explanation:  It is true that some young women in today’s society are more sexualized than in the past, but that is not true for all girls. Many girls have strict parents, dress appropriately, and do not engage in sexual activity while in middle school and high school. The writer of this thesis should ask the following questions:

• Which teenage girls?
• What constitutes “too” sexualized?
• Why are they behaving that way?
• Where does this behavior show up?
• What are the repercussions?

This section contains material from:

Crowther, Kathryn, Lauren Curtright, Nancy Gilbert, Barbara Hall, Tracienne Ravita, and Kirk Swenson. Successful College Composition . 2nd ed. Book 8. Georgia: English Open Textbooks, 2016. http://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/8 . Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Relating to lines; a way of explaining information logically and/or sequentially; can refer to the chronological relaying of information.

A brief and concise statement or series of statements that outlines the main point(s) of a longer work. To summarize is to create a brief and concise statement or series of statements that outlines the main point(s) of a longer work.

To analyze closely or minutely; to scrutinize every aspect. Unlike the fields of biology, anatomy, or medicine, in rhetoric and writing, dissect does not refer to the cutting apart of a physical body but to the taking apart the body of an argument or idea piece by piece to understand it better.

A logical, rational, lucid, or understandable expression of an idea, concept, or notion; consistent and harmonious explanation.

Assertion or announcement of belief, understanding, or knowledge; a formal statement or proclamation.

Without a defined number or limit; unlimited, infinite, or undetermined.

An altered version of  a written work. Revising means to rewrite in order to improve and make corrections. Unlike editing, which involves minor changes, revisions include major and noticeable changes to a written work.

Not relevant; unimportant; beside the point; not relating to the matter at hand.

Attractive, tempting, or seductive; to have an appealing and charismatic quality.

To influence or convince; to produce a certain or specific result through the use of force.

2.5 Writing Thesis Statements Copyright © 2022 by Kathryn Crowther; Lauren Curtright; Nancy Gilbert; Barbara Hall; Tracienne Ravita; and Kirk Swenson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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8.1: Thesis Statements - simple and complex

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TOPIC VERSUS THESIS?

The subject you are writing about is the topic. Add your opinion to a topic to create a thesis.

Topic + opinion = thesis

Add the significance to make a more complex thesis:

Topic + opinion + so what? = thesis

WHAT IS A THESIS?

The thesis is the main point of an essay, a focused, arguable statement which allows the reader to make predictions about the reading.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE THESIS?

• The language is clear , straight-forward and can’t be misunderstood.
• It is contestable and arguable. Ask yourself: Could someone disagree? The answer should be yes.
• It is concentrated on a focused point: not too broad and not too narrow, but the right size for the assignment.
• It is complex and delves into the larger significance or impact.
• It is compelling and draws in your readers’ interest and makes them want to read more to see how you prove your claim.
• It is directly connected to the prompt/question/assignment for the essay.

A THESIS IS NOT:

Why use a thesis.

• It allows the reader to make predictions about the reading.
• It guides the writer to stay focused on the main idea of the essay.
• It generates thought, evidence and analysis.
• What am I trying to accomplish in this essay?
• What do I want to convince my reader of?

HOW DO I KNOW IT'S A THESIS?

TOPIC + OPINION = THESIS

A thesis is TOPIC + OPINION so you need to make sure that opinion in present or else it is not a thesis statement. The opinion is what makes a thesis arguable and it provides the purpose and focus for the paper: to convince your reader of that opinion.

Locating the Opinion in a Thesis: When you look for the opinion in a thesis, ask yourself: What is the writer’s attitude towards the topic? For example, in the sentence “Backpacking in the mountains last year was an exciting experience,” the topic is “backpacking” and the opinion is that this trip was “exciting.” Another person on the same trip might have had a different attitude and may have found the trip boring or exhausting. “Exciting” reveals the writer’s attitude and also indicates what the essay with this thesis statement will be focused on: demonstrating why it was “exciting.” This thesis statement limits the writer’s focus and clearly tells the reader what the essay will be about.

Practice: Topic and Opinion of a thesis

Put a box around the TOPIC and underline the OPINION words below. If there are no opinion words, it is not a thesis :

• The subject of unwarranted fears, most bats are harmless and highly beneficial.
• Vigorous exercise is a good way to reduce the effects of stress on the body.
• Buffalo and Toronto differ in four major ways.
• Developing color film is more complicated than developing black and white.
• In this essay I will discuss abortion.
• Television is destroying the unity of the modern family.
• In her essay, Erlich shows that there is a balance of community and isolation in her hometown.

Put a box around the TOPIC and underline the OPINION words below:

• The subject of unwarranted fears, most bats are harmless and highly beneficial .
• In this essay I will discuss abortion (no opinion words—not a thesis)
• In her essay, Erlich shows that there is a balance of community and isolation in her hometown .

HOW DO I KNOW IT'S A COMPLEX THESIS?

TOPIC + OPINION + SO WHAT? = COMPLEX THESIS

A complex thesis is TOPIC + OPINION + SO WHAT? To form an arguable thesis, add opinion to a topic, and to make a more complex thesis, add “so what?” So what is the larger significance, the implications, and/or the outcomes of what you are arguing?

Practice: List the thesis topic and opinion

Below are student-created thesis statements about non-fiction texts. For each thesis, list the TOPIC, the OPINION and the “SO WHAT?”

THESIS STATEMENTS ON NON-FICTION TEXTS:

(1) In Field Notes from a Catastrophe, Elizabeth Kolbert seeks to use the evidence she has collected across her years of worldwide travel to show how we should best address climate change. Kolbert uses the island of Samsø to support her case for the mass implementation of alternative energy sources, but she does not point out the many cons that come with the use of alternative energy sources that are wind, biofuels, and solar which is reason enough to refrain from attempts at a greater implementation of them until problems of space, waste, and cost are addressed. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (2) In her book Field Notes from a Catastrophe , Elizabeth Kolbert argues that everybody needs to work on ending humans’ carbon emissions to prevent catastrophic climate change on our planet. However, at this point, catastrophic climate change in inevitable, so instead we need to focus our efforts on researching ways to make the new climates survivable. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

(3) T.V Reed in his book The Art of Protest, argues that environmentalism has been coded as a “white issue.” If those raising the awareness are perceived as largely white and well-off preaching to and within the same demographic, the probability of those most impacted, namely the poor communities of color who disproportionately suffer environmental hazards and toxic dumps, having a voice is dismal, so meaningful change will not occur. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (4) In The Art of Protest , T.V. Reed in his chapter “Singing Civil Rights,” says that music during the time of the Civil Rights Movement soulfully spoke about the oppressions of racism against blacks in America. Nowadays, Hip-Hop is one of the main driving forces keeping the conversation going about the continued inequalities that blacks suffer, and this is particularly important in an age of rising police brutality targeted at black men. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (5) In I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai shows how education can be used to combat terrorism in Pakistan because when people become more educated, they can more confidently self-advocate and are less susceptible to being falsely seduced by empty propaganda, so if the country follows Malala’s lead, it can rid itself of the Taliban influence. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

(6) Malala Yousafzai’s story, as told in her book I am Malala , is powerful and her cause is admirable but her idea that education combats terrorism is simplistic and glosses over the importance of the geopolitical situation Pakistan finds itself in. Education in this environment is no guarantee of deradicalization and may even work to galvanize their cause. In a political context of postcolonial exploitation where foreign governments actively try to destabilize the country and fund extremist groups, education will just make more effective terrorists. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (7) In Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead , we see a military culture of toxic masculinity—where relationships with women are transactional, showing emotional sensitivity is weakness, and violence is the preferred method of conflict resolution. This phenomenon is systemic in all branches of the military and is the catalyst for the extensive number of sexual harassment cases, rape, and high rates of suicide for service members. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (8) In Jarhead, Anthony Swofford described how the soldier’s first amendment rights are suspended once they sign the military contract. This silencing ensures that the Marines continue to follow orders from the “top” without any objections, and this control ensures that the interests of the rich and powerful are protected while the rights of the soldiers as U.S. citizens are violated, and this enables war for profit to continue. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

(1) Topic : greater implementation of alternative energy sources Opinion: problems with alternative energy are not satisfactorily solved So What? wider implementation of alternative energy could worsen current problems of space, waste and cost

(2) Topic : catastrophic climate change Opinion: catastrophic climate change is inevitable So What? need to refocus efforts from reducing carbon emissions to adaptation and survival

(3) Topic : only whites leading environment movement Opinion: non-whites most impacted but no voice So What? no change

(4) Topic : music conveying black oppression Opinion: today hip-hop conveys on-going black oppression So What? importantly exposes rise in police brutality targeting black men

(5) Topic : education to combat terrorism in Pakistan Opinion: more education leads to people self-advocating and not being tricked by propaganda So What? Pakistan can rid itself of Taliban

(6) Topic : education to combat terrorism in Pakistan Opinion: foreign countries are actively trying to destabilize Pakistan and are funding extremists So What? education will make more effective terrorists

(7) Topic : military culture of toxic masculinity Opinion: toxic masculinity is systemic in all branches of military So What? leads to sexual harassment, rape and suicide

(8) Topic : freedom of speech of soldiers suspended Opinion: silence allows the rich and powerful to use soldiers as they like So What? allows war for profit to continue

Practice: List the "topic", "opinion" and "so what"?

Below are student-created thesis statements about fiction texts. For each thesis, list the TOPIC, the OPINION and the “SO WHAT?”

THESIS STATEMENTS ON FICTION TEXTS: POETRY

(1) Before the abolition of slavery in 1865, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, fashioned her poem “Bury Me in a Free Land” to sharpen the glaring contradiction between the most cherished American value of freedom, and its antithesis expressed in the enslavement and brutalization of African Americans. Harper thereby forces her readers to come to terms with their own hypocrisy as Americans to hasten the demise of slavery. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (2) In the different stanzas in her poem “Bury Me in a Free Land,” Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, gives graphic snapshots depicting the horrors of slavery: blacks sold like animals on the auction block, escaped blacks being hunted down, blacks being whipped and beaten bloody, black babies being taken from mothers. Unfortunately, African-Americans living in the “land of the free” today still suffer many of these same forms of injustice as their labor continues to be exploited, as they suffer higher rates of profiling and murder, and as their families continue to be torn apart due to mass incarceration. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

THESIS STATEMENTS ON FICTION TEXTS: Short Stories

(3) In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat,” Sykes, a black man living in the Jim Crow South, constantly feels the need to assert his masculinity over Delia through acts of abuse and adultery in order to make up for insecurities resulting from his failure to fulfill the traditional male roles of provider and protector. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (4) In her short story “Sweat,” Zora Neale Hurston makes her reader feel empathy for the main character Delia, a hardworking woman who endures years of mental and physical abuse from her husband. Through helping her reader care about Delia, Hurston enables her reader to feel the triple burden of oppression of being black, female and poor in America. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

THESIS STATEMENTS ON FICTION TEXTS: Plays (Drama)

(5) Yusef’s wife, Anbara, writes revolutionary articles in the play Tennis in Nablus by Ismail Khalidi highlighting women’s empowerment and support as absolutely essential for the success of any movement or revolution that aspires toward real change. Khalidi uses symbolism and imagery to demonstrate that a primary reason for the failure of the Palestinian nation to escape the abuse of their British oppressors was because of their refusal to empower the most deeply oppressed members of their own society, their women. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (6) In his play Tennis in Nablus , Ismail Khalidi creates an emotional connection for his audience to the struggle of the Palestinians in their revolt against the British in the 1930s by describing a division within a family and using it as a metaphor for the divisive impact of colonization in Palestine then and afterwards. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

THESIS STATEMENTS ON FICTION TEXTS: Novels

(7) In Reading Lolita in Tehran , Azar Nafisi demonstrates how literature is not only powerful enough to become a threat against oppressive regimes, but that it also emotionally liberates those who are covertly standing against the oppressive government. By studying Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita in their secret book club, Nafisi and her students were able to relate to Lolita’s struggle but also reject being passive victims, which inspires the students to silently resist their oppressive government. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________ (8) In Azar Nafisi's novel, Reading Lolita in Tehran, she incorporates the classic American novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald in conjunction with telling the history of and her experiences in the Islamic Republic of Tehran to demonstrate how reconstructing and living in the past only dooms the future. TOPIC: _________________________________________________________________________ OPINION: _______________________________________________________________________ SO WHAT? ______________________________________________________________________

(1) Topic : American values of freedom versus slavery Opinion: American values of freedom contradict slavery So What? coming to terms with this hypocrisy hastens the end of slavery

(2) Topic : treatment of African-Americans during slavery versus now Opinion: the ways blacks suffered during slavery can still be seen today So What? African-Americans are still not truly free

(3) Topic : Sykes’ abuse of Delia Opinion: abuse results from need to assert masculinity So What? need to assert masculinity results from failure to be provider and protector. Implied: racism has emasculated, disempowered and embittered Sykes

(4) Topic : empathy for Delia Opinion: Hurston makes her reader feel empathy for Delia So What? empathy will lead to understanding the oppression resulting from race, gender, and class

(5) Topic : Palestinian revolt against the British Opinion: women are essential to revolution and real change So What? Palestinian revolt failed due to not empowering their own women

(6) Topic : Palestinian revolt against the British Opinion: emotional connection is made through divided family So What? divided family a metaphor for Palestine then and after

(7) Topic : Nafisi’s use of Lolita Opinion: Lolita helped the women to reject being passive victims So What? inspires silent resistance to government

(8) Topic : Nafisi’s use of The Great Gatsby Opinion: Nafisi uses The Great Gatsby to comment on the Islamic Republic So What? shows reconstructing and living in past dooms the future

Niamh Chamberlain

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