Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of President of the United States to two terms, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.[1] Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, when the requisite 36 of the 48 states had ratified the amendment (neither Alaska nor Hawaii had yet been admitted as states), and its provisions came into force on that date.
"Twenty-second Amendment" redirects here. For other uses, see Twenty-second Amendment (disambiguation).The amendment prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again. Under the amendment, someone who fills an unexpired presidential term lasting more than two years is also prohibited from being elected president more than once. Scholars debate whether the amendment prohibits affected individuals from succeeding to the presidency under any circumstances or whether it applies only to presidential elections. Until the amendment's ratification, the president had not been subject to term limits, but both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (the first and third presidents) decided not to serve a third term, establishing the two-term tradition. In the 1940 and 1944 presidential elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the only president to win third and fourth terms, giving rise to concerns about a president serving unlimited terms.[2]
Effect[edit]
Because of the grandfather clause in Section 1, the amendment did not apply to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent president at the time it was submitted to the states by the Congress. Without this full exemption, Truman would not have been eligible to run again in 1952. He had served nearly all of Franklin Roosevelt's unexpired 1945–1949 term and had been elected to a full four-year term beginning in 1949.[13] But with his job approval rating at around 27%,[21][22] and after a poor performance in the 1952 New Hampshire primary, Truman chose not to seek his party's nomination. Since becoming operative in 1951, the amendment has been applicable to every twice-elected U.S. president.
Attempts at repeal[edit]
Over the years, several presidents have voiced their antipathy toward the amendment. After leaving office, Harry Truman described the amendment as stupid and one of the worst amendments of the Constitution with the exception of the Prohibition Amendment.[28] A few days before leaving office in January 1989, President Ronald Reagan said he would push for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment because he thought it infringed on people's democratic rights.[29] In a November 2000 interview with Rolling Stone, President Bill Clinton suggested that the 22nd Amendment should be altered to limit presidents to two consecutive terms but then allow non-consecutive terms, because of longer life expectancies.[30] Donald Trump questioned presidential term limits on multiple occasions while in office, and in public remarks talked about serving beyond the limits of the 22nd Amendment. During an April 2019 White House event for the Wounded Warrior Project, he suggested he would remain president for 10 to 14 years.[31][32]
The first efforts in Congress to repeal the 22nd Amendment were undertaken in 1956, five years after the amendment's ratification. Over the next 50 years, 54 joint resolutions seeking to repeal the two-term presidential election limit were introduced.[1] Between 1997 and 2013, José E. Serrano, Democratic representative for New York, introduced nine resolutions (one per Congress, all unsuccessful) to repeal the amendment.[33] Repeal has also been supported by Representatives Barney Frank and David Dreier and Senators Mitch McConnell[34] and Harry Reid.[35]