The same people have been in Washington for decades, and they’re not leaving.

The honest situation

The math is the problem.

When members of Congress run again, they almost always win. In 2024, 97 percent of the ones who ran kept their seats.¹ And the only people who can pass term limits are the same people it would kick out. Changing the Constitution takes two-thirds of both chambers, or 34 states asking for a convention, then 38 states to sign off.

That doesn’t mean the fight isn’t worth it. It means I won’t lie to you about where it gets won. It doesn’t get won with one more bill that dies in committee. It gets won by making every candidate answer for it, every election, whether they want to or not. That starts now, in this campaign, in 17 counties. It doesn’t need Congress to go first.

The pledge

The whole point is getting everyone to commit.

The reason to take this to Congress is to get every member, and every candidate, to commit to a hard cap - out loud, where you can see who signs and who won’t. The House and Senate each get their own limit, because they’re different jobs. This is one of six planks in my pledge, and I’ve signed it myself. I’m not asking anyone to promise something I won’t.

What I’ll do in Washington

Use the seat to force everyone else on the record.

I can’t pass this alone as one freshman. I can use the seat to make every other member take a public position, every election.

• Cosponsor every term-limits bill that comes through.
• Sign every petition to force a floor vote.
• Vote for every resolution.
• Push leadership to bring these up for a vote, and name them when they won’t.
• Plug into the work already going. Tennessee passed a resolution (HJR5, state House March 2023, state Senate April 2024)² calling for a national convention to add a term-limits amendment. So a candidate fighting for this here isn’t starting from scratch.

What I’ll do here at home

The part that doesn’t need Congress.

In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that states can’t set their own limits on federal office. So a binding state law isn’t an option. The legal door is closed. The political one isn’t - voters expecting it, out loud and organized, is its own kind of enforcement, and it doesn’t need a court.

• The candidate pledge. A written promise any Tennessee candidate for Congress can sign: no more than 12 years. No legal force - just a public commitment voters can hold them to. Refusing to sign is the choice that costs them, because they have to explain why they want the option to stay longer.
• The voter pledge. Voters across the 17 counties commit not to vote for any candidate who won’t sign the 12-year pledge. Counted county by county, the total posted on the campaign site. Fifty thousand pledges is a fact every other candidate in Tennessee has to deal with.
• County ballot questions where they’re allowed. Tennessee is strict about local ballot questions, so this needs a county-by-county legal check. Where it’s allowed, the question is simple: do you support a 12-year limit for Tennessee’s members of Congress? A big yes vote in any county is a public number every candidate has to answer to.
• Push Tennessee’s convention resolution forward and press nearby states to pass their own. 34 are needed.

And this doesn’t stop at one party. People want term limits across the board - Republican, Democrat, independent. A voter pledge big enough in District 5 puts the same heat on every candidate of every party, because none of them can afford to be the one who said no.

What I’ll push my own party to do

The Tennessee Democratic Party has its own lever.

The party could refuse to endorse anyone who’s held the same seat more than twelve years - and could make signing the 12-year pledge a condition of getting the party’s backing. Same for state races. That turns an endorsement into something voters can actually trust. None of it needs a new law. It just needs the party to use the lever it already has.

The pushback I’m ready for

“Term limits is too slow. People want action now.”

I hear this one the most, from good people. It’s also wrong, and here’s why.

Republicans played a fifty-year game - the think tanks, the state policy shops, the pipeline that turns law students into judges. They built it slow, on purpose. It gave them the Supreme Court that overturned Roe, the state legislatures that passed voter suppression, and the map I’m running inside. They had a plan, ran it, and won.

Democrats spent those same fifty years chasing the win in front of them. Big fights, real wins - and most of them sitting on a foundation the other side can knock out the next time they take power. What Republicans built lasts. What Democrats built keeps getting repealed.

That’s why term limits comes first. Every other fix on my list assumes the people in those seats will eventually leave. They won’t - not unless something makes them.

The other pushback

“Term limits cost Congress its experience.”

If someone can’t figure out how to write a bill and pass it in twelve years, they’re not good at the job. Twelve years is six full House terms - plenty of time to learn an issue cold, build the relationships to move a bill, and put real wins on the board.

There are two kinds of experience. One is knowing how the place works - how a bill moves, which committee kills what. That gets passed down through staff and committees and doesn’t leave when one member does. The other is being how the place works - the donor list, the lobbyist friendships, the favors owed. That’s the kind we want to expire on a schedule. Term limits stop the second kind from piling up. They don’t touch the first.