Protecting Independent Institutions
The bullying and intimidation of people who are just trying to do their jobs is out of control—pressure on the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the FBI, and individual public servants who dare to uphold their responsibilities.
Government institutions must be free to operate independently and with integrity. When leaders bully the institutions that serve the people, it's not strength—it's authoritarianism.
The United States Congress was never supposed to be a lifetime appointment. The Founders envisioned citizen legislators—people who would serve their country for a time and then go home and live under the laws they passed. What we have instead is a permanent political class that treats elected office as a career, not a calling. Members of Congress who have been in Washington for 20, 30, even 40 years, accumulating power, seniority, and lobbyist relationships while becoming increasingly disconnected from the people they're supposed to represent.
The numbers tell the story. Incumbents in the House win re-election at rates above 90% in most cycles. The Senate isn't much better. The system—gerrymandered districts, massive fundraising advantages, name recognition, and party machinery—is designed to keep incumbents in office. The result is a Congress that responds to the incentives of staying in power rather than the needs of the people who sent them there. Legislation gets written to benefit donors who fund campaigns, not constituents who cast votes. Compromise becomes impossible because taking a political risk might threaten a career that's been decades in the making.
We believe Congress needs term limits. Specifically, we support working toward a constitutional amendment that would establish 12-year term limits for the House of Representatives (six two-year terms) and 24-year term limits for the Senate (four six-year terms). These aren't arbitrary numbers. They're long enough to allow members to develop genuine expertise, build relationships, and accomplish meaningful legislative work. But they're short enough to prevent the entrenchment, complacency, and corruption that come from treating a seat in Congress as a personal fiefdom.
We'll be honest: this is one of the hardest reforms to achieve because the people who would need to vote for it are the same people it would remove from power. That's why this can't be a top-down effort. It has to be built from the ground up—through state legislatures, through an Article V convention of states, or through enough public pressure that Congress has no choice but to act. Polling consistently shows that 70-80% of Americans across both parties support term limits. The only people who don't want them are the people who benefit from the current system.
Term limits alone won't fix everything that's wrong with Congress. But they would break the cycle of careerism that makes so many other problems worse. They would bring in fresh perspectives and new ideas. They would reduce the power of seniority-based committee structures that reward longevity over competence. And they would send a clear message that public service is a temporary honor, not a permanent entitlement.
Our current voting system forces Americans into an impossible choice: vote for who you actually want and risk "wasting" your vote, or hold your nose and pick the lesser of two evils. Ranked choice voting fixes this by letting voters rank candidates in order of preference. If your first choice is eliminated, your vote transfers to your second choice. Simple, fair, and no more strategic voting.
This isn't experimental—it's already working. Maine has used ranked choice voting in federal elections since 2018, and over 74% of voters say ranking candidates is easy. Alaska adopted a top-four primary with ranked choice general election. Research from FairVote shows that ranked choice voting picks broadly supported candidates up to 18 times more frequently than traditional plurality voting, and plurality systems are 50% more likely to elect extreme candidates.
Ranked choice voting also reduces negative campaigning—candidates need second-choice votes from their opponents' supporters, so scorched-earth tactics become counterproductive. For third-party and independent candidates, it eliminates the spoiler argument entirely. And for voters, it means your ballot finally reflects what you actually think, not what you're afraid of.
This is the kind of reform that doesn't require a constitutional amendment, doesn't favor any ideology, and makes elections work better for everyone. States can adopt it now, and more should.
These three reforms—protecting institutional independence, ending career politics through term limits, and adopting ranked choice voting—work together. Independent institutions ensure that the machinery of government operates on facts, expertise, and the rule of law rather than political pressure. Term limits ensure that the people operating that machinery remember who they work for. And ranked choice voting ensures that the people choosing those legislators can actually vote their conscience rather than being trapped by a system that punishes honesty.
We don't just call for reform—we draft it. We've already published two proposed constitutional amendments—a Balanced Budget Amendment and a Presidential Line-Item Veto—with full text and a ready-to-send letter for your representative. Read the amendments →