President Donald Trump said Monday he favored efforts by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to create term limits for Congress.
"I recently had a terrific meeting with a bipartisan group of freshman lawmakers who feel very strongly in favor of Congressional term limits," he tweeted. "I gave them my full support and endorsement for their efforts. #DrainTheSwamp."
The group of first-term House members -- both Republican and Democrat -- met with the President on Wednesday to discuss their idea to cap the number of years that members of Congress can serve. It's a common reform proposal made by politicians but has yet to gain much traction.
Imposing term limits would require a constitutional amendment, a rare and difficult proposal that would need approval from two-thirds of the House and Senate, or two-thirds of state legislatures at a convention. It would then need to be ratified by the states.
While members of the bipartisan group have already introduced bills calling for term limits, Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, said they plan to merge their bills to create one united effort.
"We're going to combine our bills together and really try to push the thing. I think that would be a complete, complete paradigm shift," Gallagher said in a Facebook video as he was leaving the White House last week.
Other members at the meeting included Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas; Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas; Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California; and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania.
When running for president, Trump also called for congressional term limits as part of his "drain the swamp" pitch to reform Washington, wanting to limit House members to six years of service, and senators to 12 years.
