Pew Research: Term Limits, ERA, Citizens United

Most Americans want to blow up the way Washington works — and the data backs them up.

A supermajority of U.S. adults supports term limits for members of Congress. Majorities also want age limits on elected officials, caps on political spending, and a direct popular vote for president instead of the Electoral College. These aren't fringe ideas. They are the mainstream. And yet almost none of them are being seriously debated in Congress right now.

The gap between what the people want and what their government delivers is not an accident. The U.S. Constitution is among the most difficult in the world to amend, and it has been formally changed just 27 times in 237 years — most recently in 1992. The changes Americans are asking for would almost certainly require that process. A two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress. Ratification by 38 states. In today's political climate, that is a mountain, not a hill.

The numbers on campaign finance are especially striking. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that political spending is protected speech, meaning unlimited money can pour into elections from outside groups. The people want that to change. The system, as currently constructed, is not designed to let them win that fight easily.

And then there's this: in 2020, 78% of Americans said they strongly or somewhat favored adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. Nearly eight in ten people. That is not ambiguity. That is a mandate that the political system has refused to honor.

The will of the American people is not the problem. The structures that block that will are. Leading Ladies Vote exists to close that gap — and our vote is how we start.

🔗 Read the full Pew Research report: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/28/most-americans-favor-big-changes-to-the-political-system-that-likely-would-require-amending-the-constitution/