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Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that the actions of a few make it necessary for us to create more rules for the many honest people who serve in Congress, but we must reassure Americans that we are here to serve them and not ourselves. Congressmen and Senators have lots of power and we know that power corrupts. The longer we stay in office the more power we have. Unfortunately, we have seen that power, over a period of time, creates more opportunity and temptation for us to benefit ourselves rather than our constituents.
All of the cases of corruption and bribery I have seen unfortunately come from more senior Members. No offense to my senior Members, please. But this is one of many reasons why we should have term limits in Congress.
My amendment is not a statute. It is a sense of the Senate that says we should have some form of constitutional limit on our terms in office. We are not specific in the number of years, the number of terms. It is a sense of the Senate that we should have some limit on the amount of time we serve. I encourage my colleagues to at least support this and get the debate started.
I yield the floor.
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