Texas Rep. Chip Roy has introduced legislation that would strip congressional pay, benefits, and all committee and leadership privileges from any lawmaker who accumulates more than 12 cumulative years of service in their respective chamber — a proposal aimed directly at the Washington career politician class that has entrenched itself in power for decades at taxpayer expense.
The Statutory Term Limits on Congressional Pay and Power Act, introduced Tuesday, does not prevent lawmakers from continuing to serve after hitting the 12-year threshold — but it makes doing so entirely voluntary. Any member who chooses to stay beyond that point would receive no salary, no benefits, and would be barred from holding any leadership position or chairing or serving as ranking member of any standing or select committee. The restrictions would take effect beginning with the 121st Congress in 2029, giving current long-serving members advance notice. The limit applies to cumulative service in either chamber, meaning years in the House and Senate would count toward the same clock.
"For too long, Washington has rewarded longevity with greater power, higher pay, and deeper entrenchment. This bill helps ensure that public service remains exactly that: service to the people, not a lifelong career in politics." — Rep. Chip Roy
Roy, who has served in the House since 2019 and recently lost the Texas attorney general Republican primary runoff, is introducing the bill in the final stretch of his congressional career — a move that critics might call performative but that Roy's supporters argue is precisely the point: a lawmaker with nothing left to gain legislatively making the case on principle for an idea the political establishment has long resisted. The bill sidesteps the constitutional hurdle of imposing mandatory term limits — which would require a constitutional amendment — by instead restructuring the incentives that keep career politicians in place long after their usefulness to their constituents has expired.
The proposal draws a sharp line: members can stay as long as voters keep returning them, but the taxpayer-funded perks and institutional power that make Washington a place people fight to stay in forever would evaporate after a dozen years. Committee chairmanships, leadership posts, and a six-figure salary are precisely the mechanisms that transform public servants into permanent fixtures. Strip those away and the calculation changes fundamentally.
The bill has been referred to the House Administration, Oversight and Government Reform, and Rules Committees. Term limits have long polled well with American voters across party lines but have historically struggled to advance in Congress — a dynamic that reflects the obvious institutional self-interest of the very lawmakers who would need to vote for them. Roy's approach, targeting pay and power rather than eligibility, represents one attempt to thread that needle.
Whether this bill passes is almost beside the point. Roy has put into legislation what millions of Americans feel every time they watch the same septuagenarians chairing the same committees they've chaired for thirty years. The revolving door of Washington careerism, powered by taxpayer salaries and locked in place by seniority rules, has produced an insulated governing class accountable to itself above all else. Chip Roy's bill won't fix that alone — but it names the problem with unusual clarity, and that matters.