( CNN ) -- Anti-establishment candidates are capitalizing on widespread anti-incumbent fervor and proposing term limits as a way to bring the power back to the people . As political hopefuls try to persuade voters to send them to Congress , they 're also promising they wo n't be there long . Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul said that if elected , he ca n't see himself serving more than two terms . In Rhode Island , Democratic congressional hopeful Bill Lynch has proposed a 12-year cap in the House and Senate . And in Maryland , Republican Andy Harris has assured voters that , should he go to the U.S. House , he 'll be out of there by 2023 . It 's a message that polls well and gets applause at campaign rallies , but David King , director of Harvard 's program for Newly Elected Members of the U.S. Congress , said term limits do more harm than good . `` It 's political junk food . It tastes good but hurts the body politic in the long run , '' he said . Advocates and opponents of term limits are after the same thing : keeping the power out of the hands of lobbyists and special interests . King says term limits do the opposite by taking the business of lawmaking away from elected representatives and giving it to professional staff and lobbyists . Instead , the elections process needs better campaign finance laws and a more engaged electorate , he said . `` That leads to a situation in which we reward politicians or statesmen or stateswoman who have been around for a long time and are terrific , while at the same time being able to get rid of the low-quality legislators at all levels , '' King said . But Philip Blumel , president of U.S . Term Limits , points to the high re-election rates as evidence of the need for term limits . Re-election rates have hovered around 96 percent in the House and 85 percent in the Senate over the past 10 years , according to the Center for Responsive Politics . The average length of service for lawmakers in the current session of Congress is 5.5 terms in the House and 2.2 terms in the Senate , according to the Congressional Research Service . `` You have a situation where you have a long-standing relationship between special interests and an incumbent who ca n't lose , and that is a toxic combination , and that 's most of the Congress , '' Blumel said . `` Term limits ensure regular , competitive elections . They permit change . '' It 's a debate as old as the Constitution that term-limit supporters hope to amend . Alexander Hamilton spoke against limits , writing in Federalist Paper No . 72 that , `` Nothing appears more plausible at first sight , nor more ill-founded upon close inspection . '' Thomas Jefferson , however , said term limitation , at least of the president , was necessary `` to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom from continuing too long in office . '' After the Constitution was drafted , Jefferson said one aspect he disliked was `` the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office , and most particularly in the case of the President . '' `` If you value rotation in office , like the founders did , we need some kind of codified term limits , '' Blumel said . Fifteen states have term limits for state lawmakers . Another six states have agreed to term limits in the past , but the limits were repealed by the legislature or overturned by the courts , according to the National Conference of State Legislatures . Most of the states with term limits got them through a ballot initiative , a process that only 24 states have . Jennie Bowser , who tracks term limits for the NCSL , said that while voters are generally supportive of term limits , some studies have shown negative effects that are n't obvious to the average voter , such as a loss of influence in the legislature to the executive branch and a loss of policy champions who spend years building expertise in certain subjects . `` They 're sort of inside the legislature , under-the-dome kind of things that people who are close to the legislature notice ... but no legislature has had to go out of business because term limits wrecked them , so it 's not stuff that is visible to voters , '' she said . The new wave of calls for term limits is reminiscent of the lead-up to the 1994 elections . Armed with a legislative agenda called the `` Contract with America , '' Republicans put forth a message with an emphasis on term limits . The GOP took back control of the House and Senate for the first time in nearly 50 years , and , for the first time ever , the House voted on legislation that would limit representatives to six two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms . The vote was 227 -- 204 -- a simple majority , but not the two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment . At the time , 23 states had passed laws imposing term limits on their federal lawmakers , but in May of 1995 , two months after the House vote , the Supreme Court ruled that doing so was unconstitutional . `` Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers ' vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States . If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed , that text must be amended , '' Justice John Paul Stevens wrote . In order to pass a constitutional amendment on term limits , the House and Senate would have to pass legislation with a two-thirds majority , and then three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to ratify it . South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint introduced a bill to limit lawmakers to six years in the House and 12 years in the Senate . DeMint 's bill has yet to come up for a vote , but for Blumel , the outlook is good . `` There are periods in history where term limits are at the fore , and if the people of the country want them and demand them now , we have as good a chance as any that we ever had to have them . So it 's an exciting time , '' he said . But King says that even if the idea had the support of the president and Congress , he is confident that the American public would reject it . `` The evidence after 20 years of this in state legislatures is crystal clear : term limits empower special interests , lobbyists and long-time staffers and they work against the interests of the American people , '' he said . The reason the issue polls well , King said , is because there has n't been a vigorous dialogue about it . `` People are reacting by their instinct and anger , which is understandable . But sometimes instinct and anger take us in the wrong direction , '' he said .
Some candidates making term limits a key part of their platforms . It would require a constitutional amendment to enact limits on federal lawmakers . Opponent says term limits hand power to special interests , long-time staffers . Advocate says high re-election rates are proof Congress needs term limits .