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A scandal started the movement for term limit, the scandal of Jim Wright, the once powerful House Speaker. "The term limit would remove a politician's safe seat to hang around until an opportunity for advancement opens; it would make him to either to try for promotion to another office or go back home to live with the consequences of the laws they enacted" (Coyne and Fund 18). No career-oriented politicians wanted to retire before he absolutely has to. Thus this would improve the efficiency of Congress by forcing these Careerists to work for the benefits of the people in order to prolong their political life (Washington Post). "The public has grown tired of seeing Congress accomplishes little except shovel dubious pork-barrel spending out the door and perform regulatory favors for contributors" (Coyne and Fund 21). It no longer accepted any excuses such as "divided government" and "complex issues"; it is demanding solutions to its issues. By setting the term limit, the public hoped to bring in the concept of Citizen Legislature which would be composed of a group of diverse background that perhaps could finally put an end to some of log-rolling and mutual back-scratching that characterize the legislative process today (USTL). .
The supporter of the term limit used the very fact that the term limit would bring more diversity to Congress as the proof of their argument of its ability of promoting democracy. Term limit would speed up the process of adjusting the representative ethnic and gender mix of state. As incumbents leave office, there are greater opportunities for women and minorities (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 134). Other than the diversity it would bring, the supporter also presented the evidence for "the longer representatives are in Congress the more they are influenced by Washington interest-group scene" (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 79). The term limit thus would give the interest-groups less time to convey the representatives into promoting their interests instead of the people.