Term limits on federal office, once reserved for the Executive, have become increasingly popular, at least among people who are frustrated with “the government.”
Massachusetts, the Democratic party’s crown jewel, applies them to the Governorship. As of 2025, Massachusetts is 100% Democratic in all federal seats, with a Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Senate President, and Speaker of the House. But since the early 1970’s Massachusetts voters have shown they are comfortable with having a Republican Governor, as long as the Legislature is controlled by the Democrats.
Massachusetts is where promising Republicans have their career ceilings established.
In the 1990’s, then-Massachusetts Governor William Forbes Weld, cousin of then-Massachusetts Senator John Forbes Kerry (See how their parents did that with their middle name? That’s what sociologists call a social class indicator) was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Ambassador to Mexico. Slick Willie knows how to play politics and he knew Weld could not resist the offer and that it would expose a rift in the Republican party at the time, between Weld—a Rockefeller Republican—and the aging relic of overt, Southern racism, Senator Jesse Helms.
Weld was convinced to resign the governorship and go all-in on the Ambassadorship. Helms used his considerable influence to block Weld’s appointment, back when Republicans did not march in lockstep. Weld remained aloof (an oft-noted personal character trait) to politics, returning to private legal practice until his growing involvement with the Libertarian Party, beginning in the late 2010’s.
Weld’s Lieutenant Governor, Paul Celluci, assumed the office and managed to win election to a term in his own right, along with Jane Swift as his Lieutenant. More on Jane Swift and women in the Republican Party here:
Celluci was awarded the Canadian Ambassadorship by President George W. Bush, and unlike Weld, cruised through the nomination process and served for four years in Ottawa.
Swift was doing as well as a Republican governor in a Democratic-controlled state government could do. She, like her predecessors, did not have much political leverage; certainly not enough to set agendas. She declared her candidacy for the 2002 gubernatorial election thirteen months in advance. In March, 2002, Mitt Romney said he was not interested in challenging her nor was he paying for polling to see how he would stack up against her in a primary. A week later, after a poll came out showing he would beat her in a primary, he declared his candidacy. Swift withdrew that day. She served the remainder of her term and then left Beacon Hill.
Being Governor of Massachusetts was not Mitt Romney’s first choice, but it was going to have to do. He had aspirations to be President someday, and he was raised in a time and with his father as an example, when those who wanted to be President had to show their dedication to their country either through having served in the military or through having held public office.
Although he publicly supported the Viet Nam war and he was 19 years old in 1966, Mitt’s school deferments and LDS church obligations kept him here in the United States, ringing doorbells on the front lines for Jesus Christ. Shucks, someone had to do it.
If not for the Mormon cultural expectation to always be polite (and eschew alcohol, cocaine, and nicotine), Mitt could have been the 1987, real-time model for Oliver Stone’s Gordon Gekko.
There’s an anecdote about Mitt’s time as head of the US National Olympic Committee, the head honcho of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, when he got out of his car to direct traffic. Mitt makes things happen.
After he became Governor, Massachusetts Democrats channeled the can-do energy and exceeding confidence that is Mitt Romney into creating the first-of-its-kind, universal health care system for a U.S. state.
Years before it happened nationally, Mitt Romney invented Obamacare under the thumb of the Massachusetts Legislature. Having semi-socialized medicine, Romney would later seek to distance himself from his most humanitarian accomplishment, when he ran against Obama for President in 2012.
Term limits for any offices will not by themselves break the American political cartel. Instead, they will be used to shore up party influence. We are better served by creating the conditions to guarantee contested elections—which is the underlying intention of term limits—among all potential candidates, rather than rely on the cartel to name a new candidate, every two terms
Parties will develop a more formalized feeder system than they have already done. The traditional political career begins at a local level. Winning a town, county, or state legislative office gets the future candidate’s foot in the door. Next comes elected or appointed state offices; then runs for a seat in Congress, a Senate seat, or the Governor’s office (maybe a Cabinet post), followed by runs for President or V-P.
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, Obama, and Biden all followed this path in some form. Eisenhower did not, but he proved his capacities for office by defeating Nazis.
Term limits will do nothing to prevent money from coming in and buying an office—for that we need hard campaign spending caps.
A term-limited political system will breed career politicians who know their futures will be tied directly to party loyalty. More than responding to constituents, candidates will appease the gatekeepers, and careers will rest on pleasing party leadership.
We will see a new career trajectory form, as well. Currently, high-ranking politicians hit pinnacles, and effectively retire at that level. Barack Obama could run for Senate again and would likely win; W. Bush could again be Governor of Texas; Kamala Harris has declined to run for Governor of California. Were we to see term limits on all elected offices, we would see people running for “lower” offices than they held previously for the sake of maintaining party control.
Recall when Hillary Clinton bought a house in Westchester County (while residing in the White House) because her handpicked Senate seat was about to open, and she needed to qualify for residency? At least Mitt Romney owned houses in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Utah, before he considered running for offices in all three of those states. We would see district-hopping and state-shopping worse than we have it now.
One of the difficulties that comes from tweaking systems is that once the system has been altered, the power nexus changes and old strategies may no longer apply. Take, for example, the “Golden At-Bat” which is a proposed rule for professional baseball that would allow a team to put any hitter they want up to bat, at any time in the game. Immediately, people think of the value of such an option in late-inning situations, where scoring a run could win the game.
But that is not how the “Golden At-Bat” would be used by teams that understand the value of their best hitter. Rather than wait for an uncertainty (close game in the last couple innings), it makes much more sense to guarantee a team’s best hitter an extra at-bat every game. 162 extra plate appearances per season by the best hitters would destroy all single-season, cumulative MLB batting records. Further explanation can be found here:
An all-star politician who terms out of the Presidency before turning 60 will still have a long career ahead of them. Their party would have it no other way.
Term limits will diversify the field of candidates but will do nothing to break the political cartel. That is why they are permissible to talk about.