Sen. Cruz: ‘Too Much of Washington’s Business Is Dictated by Career Politicians’

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Judiciary's Subcommittee on The Constitution, this week led a hearing entitled, "Keeping Congress Accountable: Term Limits in the United States." The hearing examined the use of term limits as a method to encourage accountability in Congress and take career politicians out of Washington. In January, Sen. Cruz and Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) introduced a constitutional amendment which would impose term limits on members of Congress, an effort that he has long championed and that is currently cosponsored by 14 Senators.

Several news outlets covered Sen. Cruz's subcommittee hearing. Selected news coverage is below:

Townhall: Should We Term Limit Members of Congress? Sen. Ted Cruz Wants to Pass A Constitutional Amendment.
"A significant majority of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum support Congressional term limits Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) explained while chairing a hearing on the subject this week. The conservative senator has already introduced a constitutional amendment to limit House members to three terms (6 years) and Senators to two terms (12 years). The amendment currently has 14 Senate Republican cosponsors and none of them were elected before 2010 according to Sen. Cruz."

Federal Times: Congressional term limits: countering power or counterproductive?
"Texas Senator Ted Cruz has a plan that he says will ensure lawmakers can't make a career out of serving in the same congressional seat by adding an amendment to the Constitution that would limit U.S. senators to two six-year terms and U.S. House Representatives to three two-year terms. The proposed amendment was introduced in early 2019 and has only garnered support from Republican lawmakers thus far, though Cruz noted at a June 18 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that the concept is supported by a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents."

World News Daily: Ted Cruz Hosts Hearing on Congressional Term Limits
"Cruz has proposed a constitutional amendment that would prevent members of the House from serving for longer than six years and senators from serving for longer than two six-year terms. He argued Tuesday that the framers of the Constitution intended that the people be represented by private citizens who serve only a brief time in government rather than by career politicians. ‘The fears of the framers have today been realized. Today the swamp is hard at work picking winners and losers, with hardworking Americans typically winding up on the losing end,' Cruz said."

After the hearing, Sen. Cruz appeared on "The Ben Shapiro Show" to discuss how congressional term limits are both widely popular across party lines and would make elected officials more accountable to their constituents.

"As you know the framers of the Constitution debated term limits, they didn't ultimately include it. I think we have seen Washington get corroded and get corrupted over now more than two centuries. The case for term limits is essentially the case for draining the swamp," Sen. Cruz said. "That [in] Washington there is a bipartisan problem of career politicians in both parties that come to Congress and stay there forever and ever and ever, they get in bed with special interests, they get in bed with lobbyists, they grow government perpetually and they stay in power. It's one of the things that drives out of control spending or out of control deficits and debt and term limits - I mean, over 80 percent of Americans support term limits and it's interesting, it cuts across party lines. That's true - the vast majority of Republicans support term limits but also the vast majority of Democrats and Independents - also the vast majority of African Americans and Hispanics, across racial and ethnic lines. The one group that doesn't support term limits is career politicians in Washington, and so today I chaired a hearing - I am the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee and I chaired a hearing on the constitutional amendment that I have introduced to impose term limits to limit members of the Senate to two six-year terms and to limit members of the house to three, two year terms."

Listen to Sen. Cruz's interview on The Ben Shapiro Show here.

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