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DeSantis signs bill imposing term limits on school board members, says Congress could use it, too

March 26, 2022 | | Print Article

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While signing legislation to impose term limits on school board members, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said this Friday that the same principle should be applied to Congress.

“I’m also a big believer that members of Congress should be term-limited. It would make a difference. And we actually, Florida certified an amendment under Article V of the Constitution prior to me becoming governor, but I supported [it]. Other states have done it. We need more states to do this, to push forward term limits for Congress. It’d make a big, big difference,” he said.

“I don’t see how you drain a swamp when you have people there for 30 or 40 years. It just doesn’t work that way. So this is good for school boards [as well]. You don’t want little swamps in the school board either. But if we look to see how term limits in Florida have worked and applied that to D.C., this country would be in much, much better shape.”

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans agree with this stance. Term limits, nevertheless, remain elusive because “politicians on both sides of the aisle are blocking it for self-serving reasons,” as noted by U.S. Term Limits, the official committee lobbying for term limits.

This is problematic because legislators are one of only two groups of people with the power to impose term limits.

“It would take a simple two-thirds vote in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, followed by majority votes in 38 state legislatures. That would pose no problem if term limits were something our leaders wanted. But it’s not. In fact, there is nothing members of Congress want less than term limits, because term limits are a threat to their power, perks, and privilege,” the committee notes.

The only other option is for a minimum of 34 state legislatures to use Article V of the Constitution to “create a convention to enact a constitutional amendment,” much as Florida has already done. The legislation there passed under former Gov. Rick Scott six years ago.

“An effort to establish congressional term limits gained steam this week as Florida became the first state in more than two and a half decades to back a constitutional convention under Article V to solely tackle the subject of federal term limits,” Sunshine State News reported on Feb. 11th, 2016.

“On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate backed a memorial from State Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Jacksonville, and Florida Rep. Larry Metz, R-Groveland, supporting an Article V convention on term limits. The memorial passed by voice vote. The House passed its version of the memorial at the end of last month,” the outlet reported at the time.

However, thus far only a handful of states have also passed such an amendment.

Imposing term limits on local-level politicians and organizations functions similarly, with legislators needing to approve — and the governor needing to sign — a piece of legislation laying out term limits. This is what happened in Florida.

The Florida Legislature pursued term-limit legislation specifically because of the preponderance of school board officials nationwide being caught trying to expose children to pornographic material and indoctrinate them in radical LGBT ideology and racial essentialism.

And indeed, in addition to imposing term limits, the bill just signed into law by DeSantis also addresses these tangential issues. The goal, ultimately, is to disempower school board members and empower their constituents, i.e., parents.

“While teachers, school administrators, and school board members have a tremendous amount of authority over what and how our kids are taught in school, at the end of the day, parents — not schools — are responsible for raising children,” Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson explained in a statement coinciding with DeSantis signing the bill.

“Florida parents are seeking greater involvement in many aspects of our education system, and this legislation speaks to that effort. The books our kids are reading in schools need to have proper vetting. Parents have a right, and a responsibility, to be involved in that process.”

Specifically, regarding term limits, Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls added, “The addition of term limits helps to weaken any political motives and shifts the focus of school boards back to the best interests of our children, as it should be.”

Vivek Saxena
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