Republicans in the Senate are hatching a plan as Senate Majority Leader and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell plans to step down from his position.
And the plan they have appears as if it is designed to prevent another Senate leader of their Party stay in the job as long as the 82-year-old has, by setting term limits, The Daily Caller reported.
The current contenders for the job are Texas Sen. John Cornyn, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, and two of them spoke to The Caller and said they support term limits.
“One reason I am running to be the next Republican Leader is because I believe the Senate needs more engagement from all of my colleagues, and that includes the opportunity for any Member to serve in Leadership. I will support a conference vote to change the rules and institute term limits for the Republican Leader,” Sen. Cornyn said of the idea.
Scott said to The Caller that Washington is currently “built on backroom deals and bad politicians getting comfortable, complacent and forgetting that they represent the people that elected them, not DC special interests.”
“Republicans all across America support term limits because it’s common sense and desperately needed,” he said. “We have a broken system, and we need a dramatic sea change and someone with a turn-around background to fix it. I’ve spent my life shaking things up. We need that in Washington right now and it’s why I’m running to be Republican leader.”
Sen. Thune, who did not speak to The Caller, had his office point to a Politico story in which he said that he is “open to discussing term limits on the next Republican leader, with a critical caveat that the topic needs to be part of a broader conversation within the Senate GOP.”
Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee said that he was waiting to see what Sen. Thune had to say on the matter before he gave his opinion.
“So far, Rick Scott and John Cornyn have pledged to abide by term limits if elected GOP leader. Can other contenders match that offer or promise other reforms to the Senate? I look forward to hearing from them,” he said.
Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that he supports term limits for the next Party chief.
“I think it would be a good idea to have term limits,” he said.
