By Dennis Powers
NASHVILLE, TN (SPECIAL TO WLAF)- During the campaign, my opponent said he could pass term limits. That line polls well. It is also not how the Tennessee Constitution works, and it is not what the General Assembly has done when the idea has actually been filed.
Tennessee House members already face the voters every two years. Senate terms are four years. Neither chamber has a constitutional cap on how many of those terms a person may serve. The governor is different: the Constitution already limits the governor to two consecutive four-year terms. Legislative term limits would be a new rule written into the Constitution, not a regular bill like a highway marker or a traffic safety bill.
Article XI, Section 3 sets a three-stage path. There is no citizen petition that puts this on the ballot by itself.
First, a joint resolution must pass the House and Senate in one General Assembly by a majority of all members elected—50 of 99 in the House, 17 of 33 in the Senate—after three readings in each house. The proposal is entered in the journals and referred to the next General Assembly. It must be published at least six months before that intervening election.
Second, the newly elected House and Senate must pass the same amendment by two-thirds of all members elected—66 votes in the House, 22 in the Senate.
Third, it goes to the people at the next general election in which a governor is chosen. “Yes” must be a majority of all votes cast for governor, not merely more yes than no among people who marked the amendment line. The governor does not sign the resolution. The clock from first filing to a possible statewide vote is often three to five years. A member elected in 2026 cannot finish that process in one House term even if every vote broke his way.
This is not a new idea that has been waiting for one freshman. It has been introduced. It has not become law.
In the 113th General Assembly, House Joint Resolution 45 proposed a 16-year limit for state and local officials (with a separate eight-year cap language for the governor). It was assigned to the State Government Committee and died in the Public Service Subcommittee in March 2023. It never reached the House floor.
In the session of the 114th General Assembly that just ended, House Joint Resolution 133 proposed amending Article II, Section 3 to bar a representative or senator from serving more than 12 consecutive years. On March 25, 2026, it failed in the Public Service Subcommittee for lack of a second. It did not get a subcommittee vote, let alone the 50 House votes and 17 Senate votes required for first-round passage.
Older statutory drafts—bills that tried to write legislative term limits into the code instead of the Constitution—have likewise stalled. Local governments sometimes debate their own limits, and the General Assembly has at times allowed a city or county a path to ask its own voters. That is not the same as capping every member of the House and Senate.
None of those resolutions cleared even the first of the three constitutional gates. Promising to “pass term limits” skips the committee that would not second the last attempt, the two-session rule, the two-thirds vote, and the governor’s-election ballot.
It is a popular slogan, but members who would have to vote for the amendment are voting to limit themselves and their colleagues. Leadership controls the calendar. A resolution that cannot get a second in subcommittee will not be published for six months, will not meet the next Assembly, and will not appear in 2030. Filing a bill is not passing a constitutional amendment. Passing it once is not passing it twice. Passing it twice is not ratification by the people.
Voters already have the shortest leash in the House: two years. If the public wants an additional cap, the honest description is a multi-year constitutional campaign, not a promise one member can keep in January.
I will finish this term on constituent work and a clean handoff. The Constitution will still be there in 2027. So will the committee calendar. That is the record against which any future term-limits resolution should be judged—not a sentence from the campaign.
State Rep. Dennis Powers represents the 36th House District, which includes Campbell, Union and parts of Claiborne County. He is the Full Chairman of the Public Acts Committee in Tennessee House of Representatives. He also serves on the Business and Utilities Subcommittee, the State and Local Government Committee, Commerce Committee, Department and Agencies Sub-committee and Calendar and Rules Committee. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-09/22/2026-6AM)
