Although California, Colorado and Oklahoma will vote on the issue this fall, limits on congressional terms have been just talk so far in this country. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, however, perhaps inspired by more desperate circumstances, announced Wednesday conditional limits that would make a long-term U.S. senator squirm.

If economic times aren’t better in two years, Gorbachev promises, he and other Soviet leaders will clean out their desks and move on. Historically, the Soviet Union has had its own special way of measuring economic change so, if this time-buying scheme works, don’t expect to see Gorbachev heading for his retirement dacha in 1992. But the idea that a position as previously solid as president of the Soviet Union should no longer come with tenure is both startling and encouraging.

What can Gorbachev hope to accomplish in the next 24 months? He could distance himself from the Communist Party by resigning his leadership position; encourage and expand private industry through the country’s cooperatives; introduce Perestroika II, a more liberal version of the first that recognizes the loosened ties to states within the Soviet Union and the changes throughout Eastern Europe; encourage contacts in the International Monetary Fund; and hire western economic consultants, who would be able to streamline the Soviet Union’s approach to market-driven economies. Two years also may cool off the anti-Gorbachev rhetoric of populists such as Boris Yeltsin.

Even Gorbachev’s relatively short time limit may not keep him in office long enough to realize the benefits of his country’s reforms, but his put-up-or-shut-up stance is a useful cue for U.S. politicians. Members of Congress, take note: You are elected for your ability to improve the lives of your constituents, not for your ability to be re-elected.