3/2 Equal Limits Amendment

Constructed Congressional Eligibility Instrument for Framework Evaluation

This page presents the canonical text of a constructed congressional eligibility amendment used as an analytical specimen within the Rotation Research Framework.

The specimen supplies a complete constitutional object for transparent and repeatable evaluation. Its function is analytical demonstration. Questions of advocacy, adoption, and political desirability remain outside the document’s assigned role.

The instrument contains:

  • separate lifetime election ceilings for the House and Senate;

  • separate chamber eligibility calculations;

  • lifetime aggregation of elections and qualifying unelected service;

  • non-restorable ineligibility for election or appointment to an exhausted chamber;

  • a closed ratification-boundary additional-election allowance;

  • anti-circumvention provisions; and

  • allocated state, chamber, and congressional responsibilities.

The companion Worked Example — 3/2 Equal Limits Amendment performs Architectural Classification, Structural Validity, Normative Adequacy, and Integrated Synthesis. This page supplies the reference instrument evaluated there.

Constructed constitutional amendments are presented as complete Article V proposing instruments. The resolving clause specifies ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the States and establishes no ratification deadline, permitting the proposal architecture and operative article to be evaluated together.

Resolving Clause

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein),

That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.

Article

Section 1. Equal Limit

No person shall be elected to the House of Representatives more than three times or to the Senate more than twice. A person who reaches the applicable limit under Section 3 shall thereafter be ineligible for election or appointment to that chamber.

The limits shall be calculated separately by chamber. Service in one chamber shall neither count toward the limit in the other nor reset, restore, or extend eligibility in either.

Section 2. Transitional Application

Notwithstanding Section 1, a person serving in either chamber at ratification who has reached the limit for that chamber may be elected once more to that chamber, solely at the first election following ratification at which the term then held is to be filled. The allowance shall expire at the conclusion of that election if the person is not elected.

All elections and service countable under Section 3, whether occurring before or after ratification, shall count. Ratification shall create no reset. An election permitted by this Section shall count under Section 3.

Section 3. Counting of Elections and Service

(a) Each election to a chamber shall count once for that chamber, regardless of the portion of the term served.

(b) All service in a chamber commenced without election to the term shall be aggregated throughout life. Each two years of such House service and each six years of such Senate service shall count as one election. Any remaining House service exceeding one year or Senate service exceeding three years shall count as one additional election.

(c) Elections and service countable under this Section shall aggregate across all House districts and all States represented in the Senate.

Section 4. Anti-Circumvention

No interpretation, procedure, or action—including a change of district, State, or chamber; the sequence or interruption of service; or the characterization of service—shall alter a count required by Section 3 or permit an election or appointment prohibited by Section 1 or not authorized by Section 2.

Section 5. Operation and Administration

This Article shall be self-executing. Each State shall apply it through ordinary ballot-access and election-certification processes using public records of elections and service. States may collect, exchange, and publish such records.

Each House shall judge the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members subject to this Article.

Congress may provide for the collection, transmission, and publication of such records but may not alter the limits, counting rules, or transitional allowance established by this Article.

Questions for Examination

  • How do separate chamber calculations preserve accumulated eligibility histories across district, State, and chamber changes?

  • How do election counts and aggregated unelected service interact under the chamber-specific conversion rules?

  • How does the ratification-boundary allowance define its qualifying class, exercise window, expiration, and convergence?

  • How does the election-and-appointment bar create a permanent same-chamber endpoint while preserving separately calculated eligibility for the other chamber?

  • How do state election administration, each House’s qualification authority, and congressional record support allocate implementation responsibility?

  • How do the three-election House limit and two-election Senate limit compare under the Public Authorization Standard and the Equal-Duration Limit?

Document Metadata

  • Document type: Constructed Article V analytical specimen

  • Institutional scope: United States House of Representatives and Senate

  • Authorization ceilings: Three House elections; two Senate elections

  • Ordinary maximum duration: Six House years; twelve Senate years

  • Counting architecture: Mixed election-and-service counting

  • Aggregation: Lifetime and separate by chamber

  • Endpoint: Non-restorable ineligibility for election or appointment to the exhausted chamber

  • Transition: Closed ratification-boundary additional-election allowance

  • Framework evaluation: Worked Example — 3/2 Equal Limits Amendment

  • Last revised: August 2026

Related Pages

→ Worked Example — 3/2 Equal Limits Amendment
Applies Architectural Classification, Structural Validity, Normative Adequacy, and Integrated Synthesis to this reference instrument.

→ How to Use the Framework
Provides the sequential procedure for classifying, testing, and synthesizing an eligibility design.

→ Structural Validity — Module I
Evaluates applicability, measurement, aggregation, exhaustion, transition, and administrative coherence.

→ Normative Adequacy — Module II
Evaluates the classified rule-in-structural-order under the Washington–Madison Doctrine.

→ Equal-Duration Limit (EDL) — Definition
Separates maximum elapsed duration from the number and frequency of public authorization events.

Last updated — August 2026