In the 1994 Congressional elections, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives committed themselves as part of their campaign platform, the Contract with America, to seek a constitutional amendment limiting the number of terms anyone could serve in Congress. They argued that the Congress as an institution of professional politicians with eroded accountability and responsiveness had strayed from the founder’s vision for Congress as a “citizen legislature”, opening the door for political scandals, enormous national debt and deficit spending. For them politics shouldn’t be a lifetime job. The US public has supported the term limits, as the most popular provisions of the Contract for America. Republicans had won the elections becoming the majority in the House. However, most Democrats, as well as some House Republicans and Republican senators opposed the term limits, explaining that they would substitute inexperienced legislators for experienced ones, giving more power to unelected government officials who serve without limits and that such limitations would prevent the people from voting for whomever they wanted. Even the supporters disagreed over the scope and length of limits: three two years terms (six years), four terms (eight years) or six terms (twelve years)? More than twelve bills were introduced but failed to secure the necessary two-thirds. In 1995 the U.S Supreme Court voted to strike down the Arkansas law banning incumbents who had served six years in the House or twelve years in the Senate from appearing on the state ballot. The Court stated in its decision that the state–imposed restriction is contrary to the fundamental principle of representative democracy, embodied in the Constitution that “the people should choose whom they please to govern them”. It meant that term limits could be imposed only through a constitutional amendment.