You may have heard that a bi-partisan group of lawmakers has unveiled legislation to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution, which, in turn, would allow presidents to run as many times as they wish for re-election. The truth is, the bill isn’t going anywhere, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun to talk about it a bit.
Why was the 22nd Amendment passed in the first place? For most of American history, the system had an unwritten rule. George Washington created what was called the “Two Term Tradition,” and it stuck until FDR ran for a third term in 1940 and a fourth four years later. Though FDR’s decision to seek a third term was controversial at the time, he justified breaking the 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 still 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.
Ever since, there have been grumblings about undoing it. Right now, there are actually two bills pending in the House to do just that. H.J.Res.9, sponsored by Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), was introduced in January but hasn’t generated much interest. A nearly identical bill, H.J.Res.24, was unveiled in February by House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), and picked up four co-sponsors, Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Martin Sabo (D-Minn.) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). Sensenbrenner doesn’t agree with the other four on almost anything, so it’s interesting to see them get together on this.
Some have, understandably, raised concerns about making George W. Bush eligible for a third term. Don’t worry; it’s not going to happen. Indeed, Bush isn’t really part of this equation at all. Under H.J.Res.24, Bush wouldn’t be eligible to run for a third term anyway; the repeal of the 22nd Amendment would only apply to future presidents.
And once we put aside the Bush-is-president-for-life concerns, we can get to the heart of the matter: is this a good idea or not?
Putting aside the fact that these bills aren’t going anywhere, and amending the Constitution should be reserved for extreme circumstances, I continue to believe this idea has merit. On principle alone, I believe voters should have the ability to keep presidents in office who’ve earned their support. An arbitrary limit on presidential terms denies voters an opportunity.
For me, all term limits are an undemocratic mistake. We can re-elect members of Congress to our hearts’ content, we can even re-elect the same person to be vice president indefinitely, yet the public is denied the chance to elect someone to the presidency more than twice. I don’t see any reason to deny voters’ rights in this area.
In addition to the principles of democracy, there are also institutional reasons to let presidents seek more than two terms. As is frequently the case, even now, presidents lose power once they become lame ducks. In other words, when Congress and the rest of the country know 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.”
Moreover, there’s no need for this to be in any way partisan. In 1986, for example, then-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 endorsed by then-Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), who 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. “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.
Reagan wasn’t the only one to warm up to the idea.
“There may come a time when we elect a president at age 45 or 50, and then 20 years later the country comes up against the same kind of problems the president faced before,” he said. “People would like to bring that man or woman back but they would have no way to do so…. I think since people are living much longer…the 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime.”
The speaker, of course, was Bill Clinton.