Repeal the 22nd Amendment?

I remember about three years ago, President Clinton would frequently make jokes about the 22nd Amendment, which prohibits a president from being elected more than twice, and how much he resented its presence in the Constitution. There was probably a kernel of truth in his jokes, but no one seriously ever talks about repealing the 22nd Amendment, right?

It turns out there are two resolutions currently pending in the 108th Congress to repeal the 22nd Amendment. One, H.J.Res. 11, is sponsored by Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), while another, H. J. RES. 25, has broader bi-partisan appeal with seven co-sponsors: Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Howard Berman (D-Calif.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), Martin Sabo (D-Minn.), and George Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). (The same seven representatives sponsored an identical resolution in the 107th Congress, but it didn’t go anywhere.)

The 22nd Amendment writes into constitutional stone what was once just an unwritten rule. George Washington created what was called the “Two Term Tradition” by serving two terms as president, despite pleas from supporters to run for a third. Subsequent presidents honored the tradition until FDR ran for a third term in 1940 and a fourth term four years later. Though FDR’s decision to seek a third term was controversial at the time, he justified breaking the presidential tradition by noting that Hitler was tearing Europe apart and a change in American leadership could cause more international instability. In 1944, the U.S. was in the midst of WWII, and again, FDR thought it imprudent to change course.

Republicans took control of Congress during Harry Truman’s presidency, but were still angry about FDR getting elected four times. Rep. Earl Michener (R-Mich.) championed a constitutional amendment to limit a president to two full terms. It was ratified in 1951.

Realistically speaking, changing the Constitution is incredibly difficult. Chances are the 22nd Amendment isn’t going anywhere. But is there really a genuine interest in repealing it? Apparently so.

The two bills currently pending in Congress are not unique. Similar bills have been introduced many times.

In 1986, for example, Rep. Guy Vander Jagt (R-Mich.), then chairman of the Republican House campaign committee, introduced legislation to repeal the 22nd so as to allow Ronald Reagan to run for a third term. Vander Jagt’s resolution was even endorsed by Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), who then served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“[I]t is simply undemocratic to prevent the people from deciding how long their presidents can serve,” Coelho said at the time. “If a president wants to run for a third, fourth or fifth term, by all means let the people decide. Why single out the chief executive for mandatory lame-duck status when members of Congress are able to run again and again?”

Reagan himself seemed to warm up to the idea in 1987, telling an interviewer that he’d support an effort to repeal the 22nd Amendment for his successors so Americans would be free to “vote for someone as often as they want to do.” Though the Iran-Contra scandal had already damaged Reagan’s reputation, and Alzheimer’s symptoms were slowly becoming apparent, a group called Project ’88 formed to try and change the law to allow for Reagan’s second re-election effort.

Some have criticized the amendment as undemocratic, while others have said it raises practical difficulties for a president in a second term. When the nation knows that a president can’t seek re-election after a second term, he or she becomes less effective. As historian Haynes Johnson put it, “The clock is running very quickly in a president’s second term because the amendment that limits him to succeed himself erodes power very rapidly.”

Chicago Tribune Columnist Stephen Chapman noted in 2001 that few presidents have ever left the White House happy after a second term. “Dwight Eisenhower was said to be in a bad mood for most of 1960, thanks to his approaching expulsion. Calvin Coolidge chose not to run in 1928, but when the Republican Party nominated Herbert Hoover to replace him, he retired to his room with a bottle of whiskey, not to emerge for 24 hours. Biographer Leuchtenburg says he doubts that FDR would have ever willingly surrendered the office.”

The presidency is the only federal office in the United States to have legal term limits. We can re-elect members of Congress to our hearts’ content, federal judges are there for life, we can even re-elect the same person to be vice president indefinitely. Yet voters are denied the chance to elect someone to the presidency more than twice.

With that in mind, maybe there’s something to this argument. To be sure, the idea of three (or more) terms for a President Reagan and/or Bush is horrifying to me, but then again, I could also be enjoying the 11th year of Bill Clinton’s presidency right now.