Welcome to the Wednesday, April 9, Brew.
By: Briana Ryan and Joseph Brusgard
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- North Dakota voters to decide on a constitutional amendment that would change term limits for state legislators
- President Donald Trump has signed 111 executive orders in his second term in office
- U.S. Senate votes 51-48 to pass amended House budget resolution
North Dakota voters to decide on a constitutional amendment that would change term limits for state legislators
On Nov. 3, 2026, North Dakota voters will decide on a constitutional amendment to change the term limits for state legislators.
The proposed amendment would allow legislators to serve four complete four-year terms (16 years) in the North Dakota Legislative Assembly regardless of chamber. Partial terms would not count toward the limit.
In 2022, voters approved Constitutional Measure 1 63% to 37%, establishing term limits for the governor and legislators. It limited legislators to a maximum of eight years in the North Dakota House of Representatives and eight years in the North Dakota Senate—and prohibited them from serving the remaining portion of a term if it would cause the legislator to have served more than eight years in the chamber. The amendment applies to individuals elected after voters had approved it.
Before 2022, legislators served four-year terms with no limit on the number of terms they could serve.
The 2026 amendment would also repeal the provision of the 2022 amendment that prohibited the Legislative Assembly from amending term limits for legislators. However, it does not address term limits for the governor.
On March 17, the Senate approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008 (SCR 4008)—the bill to put the amendment on the 2026 ballot—24-23. Twenty-one Republicans and three Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, and 21 Republicans and two Democrats voted against it. On April 1, the bill failed to pass the House in a 46-43 vote, with 46 Republicans voting in favor of it, 33 Republicans and 10 Democrats against it, and five representatives not voting. The House reconsidered it on April 2 and passed the bill 53-39, with 49 Republicans and 2 Democrats voting for it, 31 Republicans and 8 Democrats against it, and two representatives not voting.
State Rep. Lori VanWinkle (R), who opposed the bill, said, “I don’t know how we’re going to justify overrunning the will of the people. The power reserved to changing term limits is reserved to the initiative process.” State Rep. Steve Vetter (R), who also opposed the bill, said, “The senators don’t want to become representatives. That’s really what this bill is because that’s all it does.”
Senate Majority Leader David Hogue (R), who supported the bill, said the amendment “just says it’s 16 years—doesn’t matter whether you’re in one chamber or the other—and it’s a full 16 years, so I thought it had some fidelity to the measure that the people passed, although it’s not exactly what they passed.”
North Dakota is one of 16 states with term limits for state legislators.
Of the 85 state legislative chambers that held elections in 2024, 22 of them—12 senate chambers and 10 house chambers—included incumbents who could not run for re-election due to term limits. In those 22 chambers, term limits affected 1,284 seats up for election. In 2024, 179 legislators were ineligible for re-election due to term limits. This was lower than in 2020, when 211 legislators could not run due to term limits, and in 2016, when 252 representatives could not.
For more information on the 2026 amendment, click here. You can also click here for a deep dive into how term limits affect legislative elections.
President Donald Trump has signed 111 executive orders in his second term in office
As of April 6, President Donald Trump (R) has signed 111 executive orders in his second presidential term. At this point in Trump’s first term, he had issued 23 executive orders. The number of executive orders Trump has issued at this point in his term exceeds that of Joe Biden’s (D) 38 orders, Barack Obama’s (D) orders 18, and George W. Bush’s (R) 11 orders at the same point in their first terms.
Trump has issued the most executive orders on foreign policy, 30, with over half of these orders related to trade and tariffs. To read more about Trump’s trade and tariff executive orders, click here.
Sixteen orders revoke previous executive orders, and 16 are related to the administrative state.
According to an analysis conducted by the Congressional Research Service, as of March 27, at least eight of Trump’s executive orders had been paused by courts.
Trump’s total of 331 executive orders over his two terms in office ranks 13th among all U.S. presidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) issued the most, with 3,721 orders during his 12 years in office. William Henry Harrison (Whig) issued none during his one month in office. Three presidents issued only one executive order each: John Adams (Federalist), James Madison (Democratic-Republican), and James Monroe (Democratic-Republican).
To read more about executive orders in the second Trump administration, click here.
U.S. Senate votes 51-48 to pass amended House budget resolution
On April 5, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 48 to pass an amended version of the 2025 House budget resolution, sending it back to the House of Representatives. In the amendments to H.Con.Res.14, Senate Republicans sought to address the sunset provisions of certain tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 using a current policy baseline calculation method.
According to this calculation method, the tax cuts in the Senate’s amended version will cost the government $1.5 trillion. The House’s original version used a current law baseline to determine the cost of its tax cuts to be $4.5 trillion. According to calculations made using a current law baseline, the cost of the tax cuts in the Senate’s amended version is $5.3 trillion.
Whether Congress uses a current policy baseline or a current law baseline will determine the cost of budgetary provisions in the budget resolution and reconciliation process.
A baseline is a projection of the nation’s finances. The baseline projects federal spending, the national debt, revenue the government is making, and several other budgetary items, predicting the nation’s financial position throughout a specified period of time, assuming no budgetary changes.
When projecting costs and revenue, a current law baseline considers budgetary changes scheduled in law, including automatic expiration or sunset clauses. A current policy baseline does not.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) create baselines annually. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 instructs the OMB and the CBO to make current law baselines. However, Congress has the power to change the way baselines are calculated if they so choose.
H.Con.Res. 14 includes instructions for budget reconciliation. If both chambers pass H.Con.Res. 14, the budget reconciliation process will be triggered, and committees will draft legislation according to the budgetary instructions in the resolution to be put forward as a reconciliation bill. Budget reconciliation bills have limits on debate, so they require a simple majority (51 votes) instead of the three-fifths majority (60 votes), which is usually needed in the Senate to bring bills to a vote. Provisions can be struck from a reconciliation bill under the Byrd Rule if they increase the deficit for a fiscal year after the 10-year window covered by the specific budget resolution and reconciliation instructions.
Regarding the tax cuts implemented in 2017, a current law baseline would determine that extending them would cost the government $3.8 trillion. This is determined because the tax cuts are scheduled to expire in existing law, meaning that the government is not currently required to continue them and isn’t required to pay anything for their continuation.
A current policy baseline would determine that extending these tax provisions or making them permanent would cost the government nothing because the method ignores scheduled changes set by existing law and accounts only for the existing budget policy. This determination is made because extending the provision doesn’t cost the government any more than it currently spends.
Senate Democrats said they would ask the parliamentarian to rule that a current law baseline, not a current policy baseline, must be used for the budget resolution and reconciliation process. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said, “My sense is they’re going to need a ruling from the parliamentarian. I don’t think they can bypass the parliamentarian. I think they’re going to need the ruling.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said, “We think the law is very clear, and ultimately the budget committee chairman makes that determination.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said, “As the leader just said, the law seems to me to be very clear: It’s not a ruling by the parliamentarian. The budget chair gets to decide which baseline to use. It happened when Democrats were in the majority. [Former Senate Budget Committee Chair] Kent Conrad [D-N.D.] years ago used that. I expect Chairman [Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] is going to be the one to determine what the baseline is.”
For a closer look at the budget reconciliation process, click here.