The exterior of the White House is seen in Washington, D.C. on March 7, 2021. seen from outside the security fenceSarah Silbiger/Getty Images Hide caption
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The exterior of the White House is seen in Washington, D.C. on March 7, 2021. seen from outside the security fence
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As President, former President Donald Trump once joked that "president for life" sounds pretty "great".
"Maybe we have to try one day," Trump said.told the donors2018 about the President of China, Xi Jinping.
When he was still allowed to use Twitter, Trumpretweeted a videomanipulating a magazine cover to show him as president from 2024 to the year 90,000, or "4eva," as one of the backyard signs in the video says.
Whether Trump meant it or not, who knows? But if he runs in 2024, as he has strongly suggested, and is re-elected, he will only have four more years to serve in the White House. This is because of the 22nd Amendment. It reads (bold for emphasis are NPRs):
"No one may be elected to the office of President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President or who has served as President for more than two years of any term for which another person is elected President may be elected to the office of President more than once. However, this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President at the time this Article was proposed by Congress and shall not prevent any person holding the office of President or serving as President during the period in which this Article is in effect , to accept the office of President, become President or serve as President for the remainder of that term."
The amendment says nothing about non-consecutive terms, only that no one can be elected "more than twice". It allows a maximum term of 10 years, but only if someone takes office without being elected and has held the office of President for less than two years.
Lyndon Johnson served less than two years - 14 months - after the assassination of John F. Kennedy before taking office after winning the 1964 election. Johnson, who retired in 1968, could have served another four years had he done so and won. in office for a total of just over nine years.
The fact that Trump has just four more years to serve could become a political argument — public and private — for Republicans who oppose backing the former president.
Former President Donald Trump tosses hats to the crowd before addressing attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit July 23, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP Hide caption
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Former President Donald Trump tosses hats to the crowd before addressing attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit July 23, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.
Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP
Why go with Trump could be your argument when he can only serve four more years and you can vote for someone else who can eighty you?
Furthermore, election of Trump in 2024 four years later would mean an "open" presidential campaign that would disadvantage conservatives without an incumbent president being able to stand for re-election.
Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr, who has since broken with Trump over his election lies, made a similar point. Republican, heSag CBS NewsHe could "really win a decisive victory with the right candidate, but I don't think Trump is that candidate." The day he's elected, he'll be a 78-year-old lame duck obviously out for revenge above all else."
Commenting on former President Trump's re-election potential, former Attorney General Bill Barr says, "On the day of his election, he's going to be a 78-year-old lame duck who obviously wants revenge more than anything."https://t.co/DSMctvKx3W pic.twitter.com/TiJYIqlPvV
— CBS News (@CBSNews)5. August 2022
The history of the 22nd Amendment - and the frequent calls to get rid of it - has been long and dirty.
Let's go back to the beginning.
How did the 22nd novella come about?
The drafters of the constitution hotly debated how - or if - they should limit a president's term in office. majoritythe conspirators really didn't want them, partly because they wanted the country to be flexible in an emergency.
In the years following the Constitutional Convention, there were some 200 attempts of one form or another to pass legislation imposing limits on a President, without success - until the mid-20th century, after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1945, the he renounced tradition and was elected four times.
The 22nd Amendment was finally ratified in 1951, making what had become a convention permanent when George Washington decided not to serve more than two terms.
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But since the 1980s there have been several attempts to overturn it, and presidents have wondered aloud what it would be like if they could run for a third term, confident they would win again. One even spoke out against the 22nd Amendment. (More on all of this below.)
The two-term limit on a president became a contentious national issue in the late 19th century after the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1872The Twenty-Second Amendment: A Practical Cure or Partisan Maneuver, a 1990 article by Stephen W. Stathis, a former American history expert at the Congressional Research Service.
Grant's powerful allies began to promote the idea of a third term, and this became an issue in the 1874 midterm elections. Grant did not comment on his intentions, which - combined with a backward economy, white opposition to Reconstruction in the South, and ethical Scandals - caused Republicans to lose 94 seats that year. It counts as thefirst wave of elections.
Political winds rose against a third term for Grant, and shortly after the mid-term defeat he said he "would not accept a proposed nomination unless it was made in circumstances that would make it a mandatory requirement - circumstances which were unlikely to occur."
In 1875, the House of Representatives passed a resolution approving the biennial convention, saying that it would be "unwise, unpatriotic, and fraught with danger to our free institutions" to leave it.
However, this did not have the power to make an amendment or legally prevent a president from doing so if he wished to do so. In fact, Grant tried again in 1880 — and came pretty close.
He led by 35 votes in the 1880 Republican nominating convention that year. On Day 36, his opponents banded together and handed the nomination to James Garfield.
Ironically, Republicans led efforts to pass the 22nd Amendment beginning in 1946 when they retook the House of Representatives. It was largely in response to FDR's unprecedented four terms in office, which he served during the Great Depression and World War II from 1933 to 1945.
FDR broke the two-office norm, his supporters argued, because consistent leadership was needed during World War II. But setting a term limit for the presidency became a top priority for Republicans after his death.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt speaks on a platform during his fourth inauguration in 1945.Keystone Features/Getty Images Hide caption
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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt speaks on a platform during his fourth inauguration in 1945.
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Some Democrats saw the move as an insult to Roosevelt's memory. But there were also many who were increasingly concerned that Roosevelt had set a dangerous precedent. They argued that the change was "not an undemocratic constraint on the popular will, but a democratic constraint on any dangerously ambitious future demagogue," according to Stathis' article.
After lengthy negotiations—mainly over whether to set the two-term limit of four years or one six-year term—the 22nd Amendment was finally passed by Congress in 1947. And with the help of some strange bedfellows.
Republicans, many motivated by Roosevelt's presidency and others concerned about preserving democracy, joined Southern Democrats in anger at then-President Harry Truman for continuing Roosevelt's liberal economic policies.
Stathis' article also notes that more Southern Democrats might have joined had they known that Truman would push his civil rights program:
“Shortly after the President sent his special civil rights message to Congress on February 2 [1948], Governor Fielding L. Wright of Mississippi asked the Southern Conference of Governors to inform the leaders of the Democratic Party that they were continuing the repeated campaigns for the passage of civil rights laws. Less than a week later, the Mississippi state legislature voted overwhelmingly to ratify the 22nd Amendment.”
It seems normal in a country whose history and politics revolve around money and race.
Trump isn't the only president who dreams of serving more than two terms.
After leaving office, Democrat Barack Obama said he believed he could have won a third term if it had been allowed.
"I'm confident in that vision [of 'hope and change'] because I'm confident that if I — if I had walked again and articulated it, I believe I could have mobilized a majority of the American people to join her,"Obama saidin a podcast episode with former senior counsel David Axelrod. "I know from the conversations I've had with people across the country, even some people who didn't agree with me, they would say the vision, the direction you're pointing, is the right one."
the two ways
Obama says he would have won a third term had he run for office
Before that Democrat Bill Clinton,asked if the constitution would have allowed ithe should run again, right?
"Oh, I probably would have run again," Clinton said.Rolling Stoneafter the 2000 elections, adding that he believed he would have won. "Yes. I do. But it's hard to say because it's totally academic."
Clinton even suggested that, given that people are living longer, perhaps the 22nd Amendment should be changed to include only "consecutive" terms.
There was a real movement in the 1980s trying to get Republican President Ronald Reagan to run for a third term.
At a fundraiser for former Texas Gov. Bill Clements in 1986, Reagan revealed that when he flew to the GOP convention two years earlier, he was at least thinking about what it would be like to run for a third term if he could.
Then-President Barack Obama, seen here at the White House in 2014 with former President Bill Clinton, said he thought he could have won a third term if it were allowed. And Clinton even suggested that, given that people are living longer, perhaps the 22nd Amendment should be changed to include only "consecutive" terms.Charles Dharapak/AP Hide caption
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Then-President Barack Obama, seen here at the White House in 2014 with former President Bill Clinton, said he thought he could have won a third term if it were allowed. And Clinton even suggested that, given that people are living longer, perhaps the 22nd Amendment should be changed to include only "consecutive" terms.
Charles Dharapak/AP
"In fact, as I flew over the convention center this morning," he said, "I started to ask myself, 'Would the people down there feel like trying it again?' "
There was thunderous applause for that. "Thanks for that," he said, "but I'm just kidding, of course."
At a later event, Reagan was more explicit. After being greeted with chants of "four more years," he spoke out against the 22nd Amendment.
"Well, I have to tell you, I think that should be changed," he said, "because I just think it's democratic that people can vote for anyone as many times as they want."
Reagan argued that it should only be for future presidents, not necessarily him, but that hasn't stopped Republicans from raising funds and promoting the idea of overturning it.
"Ronald Reagan is one of the greatest American presidents of all time and I want to keep him in office," it said.a donation letterby Rep. Guy Vander Jagt, R-Mich., then chairman of the Congressional Republican National Committee, responsible for attempting to support Republican election to the House of Representatives.
Vander Jagt proposed legislation in 1986 to repeal it. "The 22nd Amendment is an insult to American voters who are smart and informed," he said.he said.
Nothing came of it. But that hasn't stopped other people, some quite powerful, from trying it over the years.
Alongside Vander Jagt, who continued to present his amendment everywhere, George H.W. Bush, now Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, instituted one of his own in 1995.
"I intend to introduce a constitutional amendment that would repeal the 22nd Amendment because it also denies voters the ability to choose their president," he said.thisnot a moment.
(1) The economy improved, Reagan won 49 states in his re-election bid; (2 & 3) Since he left office, some have wistfully spoken of changing the constitution to allow him to run again.Hide caption
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McConnell was not alone. The same year after Clinton was reelected, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., also introduced the 22nd Amendment Repeal Act. He continued it throughout the presidency of Republican George W. Bush.
New York Rep. José Serrano began introducing similar repeal legislation in 1997, but when he introduced one in 2013 after Obama won a second term, it sparked allegations that Obama was trying to "president for life."
Given the polarization in modern politics, it is highly unlikely that the change will ever be reversed. Just think of the bipartisan hurdles it would have to go through to become a reality: It would need the support of two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, and then three-fourths of the state legislatures in seven years.
And with a Trump candidacy looming, the Democrats would now firmly oppose it.