Congress has become a glorified retirement home for career politicians.
Governor Ron DeSantis decided to do something about it.
And Ron DeSantis just exposed the dirty secret that keeps Congress broken.
DeSantis teams up with unlikely ally
Governor Ron DeSantis is term-limited out of the Florida Governor's mansion in January 2027.
But he's not sitting around waiting for his next act.
DeSantis has teamed up with former Democrat Representative David Trone of Maryland to co-chair a campaign with U.S. Term Limits.
"Our Founders wouldn't recognize the 119th Congress if they saw it today," DeSantis and Trone said in a joint statement.¹
"Congress is now less a representative body and more like an elite country club of career politicians who are consumed by an obsession to remain in power."¹
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/1982125696865493029?s=20
The two former House members published a joint op-ed in The New York Times calling out Washington's dysfunction during the ongoing government shutdown.
"The House and the Senate are dominated by career politicians, buoyed by re-election rates that routinely exceed 90 percent, who seem more concerned with clinging to power than serving the public," they wrote.²
That's not an exaggeration — the turnover rate for House incumbents typically stays below 10 percent.³
DeSantis destroys the lobbyist argument
Critics trot out the same tired excuse: if you get rid of experienced legislators, lobbyists and staffers will run everything.
DeSantis isn't buying it.
"I hear this stuff about Congressional term limits, they'll say, 'Oh, well, then the lobbyists are going to run it, then the staff is going to run it,'" DeSantis said during a visit to the Ohio Statehouse.⁴
"Who do you think has been running it now?"⁴
The lobbyists already run Washington.
"When they do these omnibus bills, do you think that's something that all 435 of these House members are actively debating?" DeSantis asked.⁴
The seniority system ensures a handful of career politicians control everything while everyone else rubber-stamps whatever leadership puts in front of them.
"The congressional playing field is not even," DeSantis told CNN's Jake Tapper.⁵
He argued that the current system forces members to serve 20 or 30 years just to get any real power — and by then they've stopped thinking of themselves as representatives.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1942352150639632762?s=20
The Constitution already shows this can work
The Founders understood this problem.
The Articles of Confederation had term limits, mandating that "no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years."⁶
And we already term-limit the most powerful office in the country — the 22nd Amendment restricts presidents to two terms.
"If term limits are good for the presidency, why not for Congress?" DeSantis and Trone asked.²
The American people agree — 87 percent support term limits according to Pew Research.⁷
The Article V path around Congress
Congress will never vote to limit its own power.
The term limits movement learned that in 1995 when the House fell short of the two-thirds majority despite getting 227 votes.⁸
The Supreme Court gutted state-level term limits laws that same year in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton.⁹
But the Court acknowledged that term limits "must come through a constitutional amendment properly passed under the procedures set forth in Article V."⁹
That's the path DeSantis is taking.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1922377892203528209?s=20
Article V allows 34 state legislatures to call a constitutional convention without Congress lifting a finger.
Florida passed a resolution calling for a term limits convention during the 2024 legislative session, and twelve states have now followed.¹⁰
"D.C. will never fix itself," DeSantis said.¹⁰
"Term limits will change the incentives for members of Congress from focusing on reelection to focusing on tangible accomplishments."¹⁰
U.S. Term Limits wants three terms for Representatives and two for Senators.
Long enough to learn the job.
Short enough to remember who you work for.
"We are the greatest nation on Earth," DeSantis and Trone concluded.²
"We deserve a Congress that reflects that greatness, not one that serves as a retirement home for career politicians."²
The Founders created a system of citizen legislators who would serve and go home.
What we have now is a permanent ruling class.
DeSantis is trying to fix that — whether Congress likes it or not.
¹ Holly Gregory, "DeSantis takes on new role: Pushing for congressional term limits," Spectrum News 13, November 5, 2025.
² Ron DeSantis and David Trone, "'Retirement Home': Ron DeSantis Teams Up With Democrat To Push For Congressional Term Limits," Daily Caller, October 22, 2025.
³ Heritage Foundation, "Term Limits: The Only Way to Clean Up Congress."
⁴ Sarah Donaldson, "Florida Gov. DeSantis, Ohio House GOP call for term limits in Congress," Statehouse News Bureau, May 14, 2025.
⁵ U.S. Term Limits, "DeSantis: 'The Congressional Playing Field is Not Even—Term Limits are the Fix,'" Press Release, November 19, 2025.
⁶ National Constitution Center, "Why term limits for Congress face a challenging constitutional path."
⁷ Pew Research Center, September 2023 survey on congressional term limits.
⁸ Congress.gov, "S. Rept. 104-158 – CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS."
⁹ U.S. Term Limits, "Our Mission: Term Limits on Congress."
¹⁰ Office of the Governor of Florida, "Governor Ron DeSantis Advocates for a Constitutional Amendment for Congressional Term Limits," 2025.
