Twenty-second Amendment to the
United States Constitution
US constitutional amendment
The Twenty-second
Amendment to the United States Constitution was an addition to the United States Constitution that put
a limit on how many times a person could be elected to
be President. A person is limited to
eight (and possibly ten) years as president. Congress passed the amendment on
March 21, 1947. It was ratified on
February 27, 1951.
Contents
History Edit
The President of the United
States is elected to have that position for a period, or "term", that
lasts for four years. The Constitution had no limit on how many times a person
could be elected as president. The nation’s
first president, George Washington chose not to try to be
elected for a third term. This suggested that two terms were enough for any
president. Washington’s two-term limit became the unwritten rule for all
Presidents until 1940.
In 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a
third term. He also won a fourth in 1944. Roosevelt was president through
the Great Depression of the 1930's and almost all
of World War II. He held approval ratings in the mid-50%
to the low 60% rages over his many years in office. Roosevelt died of heart
failure in April of 1945, just months after the start of his fourth term. Soon
after, Republicans in Congress began
the work of creating Amendment XXII. Roosevelt was the first and only
President to serve more than two terms.
The amendment was passed by
Congress in 1947, and was ratified by
the states on February 27, 1951. The Twenty-Second
Amendment says a person can only be elected to be president two times for a
total of eight years. It does make it possible for a person to serve up to ten
years as president. This can happen if a person (most likely the Vice-President) takes over for
a president who can no longer serve their term. If this person serves two years
or less of the last President’s term, he or she may serve for two more
four-year terms. If he or she served more than two years of the last
President's term, the new President can serve only one full four-year term.
Harry Truman would have been exempt from the amendment having been elected
twice before its ratification. He served only two terms before retiring from
office.
Criticism and problems Edit
Since 1985, there have been
many attempts to either change or remove this amendment. This began when Ronald
Reagan was serving his 2nd term as President. Since then, changes have
been tried from both Democrats and Republicans. No
changes have been made.
There is some debate about
how this amendment works with the 12th Amendment.
The 12th Amendment limits who can become Vice-President to only people who meet
the requirements of being President.
One side of the debate points out that since a 2 term president can not become
president again, that person can also not be vice-president. The other side of
the debate is that the 12th Amendment deals with requirements but the 22nd deals
with elections. This side points out that not being allowed to be elected does
not mean that person does not meet the requirements needed by the 12th
Amendment.
However, a person who already
had been elected to two terms as President would violate the 22nd Amendment,
with regards to elections, since the amendment states "... no person who
has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years
of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be
elected to the office of President more than once". Here, the previous 2
term President, attempting to serve as Vice-President, would have already been
elected to the office of President more than once, and would not be able to
fulfill the whole term of office of the President if required (particularly the
portion of the term past the initial two years) - thereby violating the
election standard (and essentially defining a requirement of eligibility /
ineligibility that is outside of the US Constitution Article 2, similarly to
the fact that impeachment of a person from any US Office, where they were
disqualified from holding any US Office, would also essentially define a
requirement of eligibility / ineligibility by preventing the impeached person,
who had been disqualified, from later holding the office of President under the
US Constitution Article 1 Section 3).
Since no president who has
served two terms has ever tried to be vice-president, this problem has not yet
been decided by the courts.
People affected Edit
Harry S. Truman became President because of
the death of Roosevelt. He served most of Roosevelt's last term as President.
This would have limited him to being elected only one time, but he was not
affected since the amendment did not affect the person who was the current
President when the amendment was originally proposed by Congress. Since this
provision could only have applied to Truman, it was an obvious effort not to
limit him. Truman did win the election in 1948 but ended his try to be
President in 1952 before the election began.
Lyndon B. Johnson is the only president so far
who could have served more than 8 years under this amendment. He became
President in 1963 after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
He served the last 14 months of Kennedy's term. Because this was less than two
years, he was allowed to be elected for two additional terms. He won the first
term in 1964, but did not wish to run for a second term before the elections in
1968.
Gerald
Ford became President in 1974 after Richard M. Nixon left office. Ford served the
last 29 months of Nixon's term. This meant he could only be elected as
president once but he lost that election to Jimmy
Carter in 1976.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard
Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack
Obama could not be elected again because of this amendment. All of
them were elected twice. Donald
Trump and Jimmy
Carter can run for president again as they have only been elected
once. The late George H.W. Bush could have run for president again, as he was
only elected once.
Text of the 22nd Amendment Edit
This section is the text of
the amendment in its original English. It is not in Simple
English.
Section 1. No person shall be
elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has
held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of
a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the
office of President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any
person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by
Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of
President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article
becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President
during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This Article shall
be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the
Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within
seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment