Resolution to Repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment:
It's H.J. Res, 111th Cong., 1st Sess., introduced by Rep. José Serrano on Jan. 6, 2009. The resolution proposes "an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President." I don't have much to say on the merits, but I'm curious about the backstory: Why is Rep. Serrano proposing this? He had apparently done the same in 2005.
Thanks to Jeff Settle for the pointer.
(Although I guess it is possible I read about Mr Serrano's 2005 resolution.)
Why was Reagan's opposition disingenuous, as you say? His stated reason for opposing it wasn't good enough for you? Not believable? It only happens to be in keeping with the man's lifelong, defining philosophy of less government intrusion and more liberty for the people. His presidency was shaped by this credo in almost everything he did. That's disingenuous?
My guess is, you're disingenuous. You didn't like Reagan - you're free to hold that opinion. However, no need to go around disparaging him because of your own ignorant biases.
And the man was 77 at the close of his two terms. My informed opinion (not an uninformed one, such as yours) is he never wanted a third term - he simply wanted government to operate within its constitutional bounds.
However (slightly off topic), I suggest that the 20th amendment needs to be repealed, and that a President-Elect needs to take office much sooner after the election.
There's quite a difference between limitations intended to ensure that the person elected is competent to lead the nation-- as the age requirement, however imprecise an approximation it may be, is intended to do-- and seemingly arbitrary restrictions on the amount of time a legally competent and popular official may serve.* I suppose the merits of Reagan's argument are debatable and there is something to be said for a regular infusion of fresh blood in the office, but I wouldn't call his position "specious" simply because there are other, uncontroversial limitations placed on who can be president.
*Being no fan of the natural-born citizen requirement, I won't bother defending that; I see no reason why it shouldn't be repealed.
His website doesn't offer an explanation, although it offers a passionate plea to Major League Baseball to retire Roberto Clemente's number.
I thought Madame President For Life would be Helen Thomas. Maybe Rosie could be VL?
Earlier, states were considered powerful political bodies that would check &balance the federal government. If state legislators appointed their senators (as required by Article 1, sec 3) maybe they'd be servants of their state as a political body a little more. The popular vote is not an effective political force in our modern government.
I have never, ever heard that Reagan himself advocated a repeal of the 22nd Amendment so that he could serve a third term. Maybe his admirers/subordinates did, so that he could serve a third term; maybe he had a general philosophy that didn't favor term limits; maybe he at one point mused about wanting to run for a third term without actually advocating the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. But I've never heard of him personally pushing such an agenda. Any non-Wikipedia source for this?
As 2000 showed, when there is a closely contested national election, you need some lag time between Election Day and the Inauguration. Bush v. Gore was not decided until December 12, 2000, shortening the transition period to 41 days.
However, imagine what would have happened if the Florida recount had been allowed to proceed. As we have seen with Minnesota this year, that isn't pretty (and Barack Obama will be President before either Norm Coleman or Al Franken take the oath of office).
right now obama is a hit....there is at least a chance he continues this feat though his presidency (as basically Clinton did)
if he does...the dems would want the 22 out of the way to ensure another dem term i nthe white house...but trying to introduce the amendment at that time would be too blatant politics
Keep 22
Keep the ban on foreign-born candidates
Ideally, we'd revamp the system completely:
One-term president, the term running six years. No re-election in the next election, but the possibility to run again six years later.
Two term Senator, the term running four years. Again, no direct re-election, but wait a term and try again.
Maximum of three consecutive terms for Representative, each term running two years. Again, sit out a term and you can try again.
If nothing else, it would give a break between election cycles.
So someone's found my hot button.
Bitter? I'm not bitter! Ronald Reagan just ruined the whole damn country!
When the facts don't fit, print the myth? I have too many battle scars from that thorn-in-my side, Ronald Reagan.
Believe the myths all you like. He was a grade-B actor, and his being an FBI informant on his fellow actors while SAG head, gave him his creds to advance to political power.
Reagan's idea of less government, was to get government out of the boardrooms and into the bedrooms, as moral panics are a chief distraction while looting and plundering.
The previous pornography commission had issued pornography a clean bill of health. Reagan's AG Edwin Meese III, muck-raked, in a new pornography commission, and assaulted the 1st Amendment worse than their attempt on the 22nd.
The wrong comes from using power as an object principally for grabbing more power, as opposed to simply using it for the purpose for which it was intended. I opposed his run at the 22nd Amendment then, because the argument was only self-serving to Reagan, not the nation.
If it passed now, I would say, let anyone who wants to, vote for the man again.
I think it would make sense to consolidate the citizenship and age requirements ie., require a person to be a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age (and while we are at it clarify that natural born includes anyone whose citizenship is either jus soli or jus sanguinis), or have been a naturalized citizen for 30 years. This effectively nullifies the natural born requirement for those who immigrated in very early childhood (think Bridget McCain in 2030 ;)), and raises the age requirement for those who immigrated later.
As for repealing amendments- the only really horrendous successful amendments were the Progressive trio of the 16th, 17th, and 18th amendments. The 18th (prohibition) is already gone, and it's well past time to scrap the 16th for more good reasons than I can possibly list here, and the 17th for the way it took a wrecking ball to the carefully balanced power structure set up by the Founders. Not only does the 17th severely undermine federalism, it also produces a grossly disproportionate system of popular representation. If a state legislature tried to set up its upper house like the Senate, say with one senator for each county, the courts would rightly strike it down as a violation of "one man, one vote".
I wouldn't trust the legislators in my Statehouse to make a PB&J sandwich, let alone chose our Senators. Either you guys have a lot of respect for your state government or an equal amount of contempt for the voters.
So you don't desire that there be any attachment to this country, just born?
I agree that you have pointed out several problems w/ my suggestion. However, your concerns can be remedied when (and if) the 20th amendment is repealed. For instance, the President-Elect could take office on, say, November 14th or the day on which the election is decided, whichever is later. However, my concerns with the 20th amend -- such as the reluctance of the current lame-duck president to take action regarding the economy -- are hard wired into the Constitution and can not be remedied w/o an amendment.
What I have in mind would do nothing to change the 14 year permanent residency requirement, which as of right now would allow a person who was born in the US to non-citizens, immediately left the country days after birth, returned at age 21, and be eligible at age 35.
(There should also be a prohibition on members of congress receiving a pension. That's simply ludicrous.)
"With a positive duration of considerable extent, I connect the circumstance of re-eligibility. The first is necessary to give to the officer himself the inclination and the resolution to act his part well, and to the community time and leisure to observe the tendency of his measures, and thence to form an experimental estimate of their merits. The last is necessary to enable the people, when they see reason to approve of his conduct, to continue him in his station, in order to prolong the utility of his talents and virtues, and to secure to the government the advantage of permanency in a wise system of administration....
There is an excess of refinement in the idea of disabling the people to continue in office men who had entitled themselves, in their opinion, to approbation and confidence; the advantages of which are at best speculative and equivocal, and are overbalanced by disadvantages far more certain and decisive."
http://www.votesmart.org/reference/fedlist/fed72.htm
I like this idea; it both preserves the competency requirement of a minimum age while opening the door to some of our newest citizens. The only change that I would make is to have the minimum length that you have to be a naturalized citizen be the same as the minimum age for a native-born citizen (both 35 would be my preference).
Better yet would be to emulate the Romans with two co-executives for one year terms.
Neither of which will happen, of course.
So, I like keeping the 22nd.
No Caesars here.
It's somewhat surprising since a term limit that only applies to the president increases the relative power of Congress (which is why both elected branches should have term limits or neither should). Perhaps he's taking a page out of the play book of Hugo Chavez? (Wikipedia entry: "In 2005, while the Venezuelan President was in New York City speaking before the United Nations, the congressman invited him to his district to speak to his constituency.")
How so? A term limit does nothing to decrease the power of an office. I don't see how the 22nd Amendment at all changed either the relationship or the balance of power between the President and Congress.
gamesunintended consequences begin!What's wrong with letting the voters decide?
The biggest problem with the natural-born citizen requirement is that nobody can seem to agree on what it means anymore. For instance, someone earlier equated it to a ban on the "foreign born" from becoming citizens -- a view that most legal scholars consider incorrect as that would ban even the son or daughter of a soldier or consular official stationed overseas from becoming President.
I say keep the residency requirement, possibly tack on a requirement that someone be a citizen for X years and get rid of the "natural born" silliness. I know plenty of people who are still not U.S. citizens who have more attachment to the U.S. than some "natural born" citizens ever will.
It does not decrease formal constitutional powers, but it does decrease the likelihood of effectively using both the formal and informal powers of the office by virtue of lame duck status.
We can solve this problem by abolishing the EC. The odds that an election would be so close as to require a recount on a national level are vanishingly small.
That's pure speculation. How do you know how close a Presidential election would need to be in order for there to be a national recount? Also, why would any such recount need to be nationwide? Each candidate would likely ask for recounts in areas which are advantageous to that candidate.
Jon E. Dougherty, "Clinton's re-election plans? Bill to repeal 22nd Amendment introduced", World Net daily, February 01, 1999
"Clinton eyeing White House again? Bill wants change in Constitution's presidential term limits", World Net Daily, May 29, 2003
"Should presidents be allowed to serve more than 2 terms? Bills introduced in Congress to repeal 8-year restriction of 22nd Amendment", World Net Daily, October 08, 2006
Doug Powers, "Bills Introduced To Repeal The 22nd Amendment, Bubba Perks Up", Men's News Daily, October 8, 2006
I know many view Reagan's appointments of both Alex Kozinski and Sandra Day O'conner as good choices and that they are are both dear to your heart. I am not condemning everything Ronald Reagan did. He took credit for an awful lot I did, however.
My personal stories to do with Ronald Reagan would make the character of Forrest Gump look like Gump was of little or no consequence.
Are you sure you want to go into Myth Busters, right here, right now?
It appears now that my caution may have been overzealous, by the way the term phrase 'citizen by natural birth' is being interpreted.
But all Foreign Service Officers--including Consular Officers--shared my understanding of the law.
As far as repealing the 17th Amendment goes, it wouldn't matter anyway. By the time the 17th Amendment was enacted there was not one state legislature that was selecting its state's Senators based on its own say so. Every state held some type of selection process in which the people directly indicated who the legislature should choose. And in many of those states, the legislature was bound by the results of the people's selection. The power was still nominally in the hands of the state legislatures, but it was ultimately in the hands of the people. It's extremely doubtful that any state legislature would be so brazen as to take the power of picking a state's Senators back into its own hands even if the 17th Amendment were repealed. It's a situation that no state's people would be willing to accept.
You are still avoiding the question. Which is kinda rude, since you're the one who raised it.
My personal stories to do with Ronald Reagan would make the character of Forrest Gump look like Gump was of little or no consequence.
I'm not sure anyone here has been arguing the case for the significance of Forrest Gump. Perhaps you have us confused with a different blog?
My "personal story": I was very much in favor of repealing the 22nd for many years. Then the German CDU collapsed in a finance scandal after 16 years of Helmut Kohl's chancellorship.
This caused me to rethink the wisdom of the limitation on presidential terms. The CDU is a remarkable party that has done at least as much for postwar European peace and unity as any political alliance can claim to have accomplished in that period. And Kohl is a "good man," as they say.
But given 16 years of the same government, it became too easy for corporations with interests in Germany to donate to the winner. It took no guesswork. And the Union became self-satisfied, as any party might do when they know they have a lock on power. The rules began "not to apply" to them any longer.
So I'm a born-again term limiter.
Bit if the 22nd were to be repealed, someone somewhere is going to have to insist that, like the 22nd itself, the repeal-amendment does not apply to the president in office at the time of ratification.
The election mechanics are fairly complicated because I envision being able to resign the state office after some period and then remain subject only to a retention election for the Senate seat. Also provide means for home state recall.
I do not have videos of Ronald Reagan saying that. I kept notes on Ed Meese and also William French Smith, before him, during that time. My video collections tend to be of more recent vintage, of Alberto Gonzales speeches and Ashcroft before him. But opposing Reagan's push against the 22nd Amendmend was one of those battles I chose carefully and I should have notes to jog my memory.
I criticised it then as it was so untowards, just as I tend to do when any sitting leader tries to extend the term of office while they hold that office, such as Vladimir Putin tried and Dmitry Medvedev persisted in. It was no more correct when Hugo Chavez did this.
To that end, what if some fraction (at least 30~50% but as much as 100%) of the Senators were nationally elected and were not beholden to any particular state? Possible effects of such a move:
1. Pork is rarely in the national public interest, so it would cease to be a problem as it cannot pass the Senate. The Senators' constituents are now the entire voting American public.
2. Decreased Presidential power. Presidential power has increased in recent years, perhaps in part because of the increasing public profile afforded to the President (and VP) by mass media and by virtue of the fact that the President (and VP) are our only nationally elected governmental officers. During election time, if national Senatorial campaign ads had to compete with Presidential ones, I think the President's place in the public eye as the figurehead of government would attenuate somewhat.
3. An end to gerrymandering. OK, this would probably only happen if Representatives were also made national officers, because hey, if the border of your district coincides with the border of the US, there is no way to rehash district lines in your favor.
Sounds like milk and honey to me. I haven't it thought it too far through yet, though, so feel free to chime in if you see an oxen being impaled or anything.
I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I actually like having the Senate disporportionate split. It may be a bit lopsided, but I see that as being preferable to NY, CA, FL, TX, PA and a few other states being able to drag the rest of the nation along with them. I'm not sure what the current split is, but my vision for the perfect split would be 2/3 of the Senate representing the 50% least populous states. Given that such a system would need constant adjustment (along with 100% agreement from the states to implement), I see the current 2 per state as a useful alternative.
Well, if the allows the Public Company Accounting Board to remain as it currently exists there would be no need for such an amendment. I actually think that's the wrong direction though. Would much prefer to see all such agencies returned to the direct control of the President.
Because amending the Constitution is so difficult, I can't foresee any constitutional amendments in the near future. The Electoral College, in particular, is safe. Why would the 13 smallest states want to give up what little pull they have in Presidential elections?
Always knowing that you're going to be held accountable by the People ought be a great motivator towards good behavior.
The presidency of Hugo Chavez should educate anyone on why removing a limit on terms in office doesn't portend good government. Also, with the effort underway now to lengthen the Russian presidency to six years coupled with the fact the Russian Constitution doesn't prevent someone who has held the office for two terms from running again as long as there is a term in between, you can't believe 12 future years under Putin will be good for the world.
Further your argument that a "Lame Duck" president can essentially get away with murder in his final term goes against modern history. As the history since the 2nd world war has shown second term presidents usually have the toughest time trying to get anything passed through Congress. Even the senators and Congressmen of the president's party may want to distance themselves from him to open the door for their own run for the office. Besides, everyone who says Bush did bad things in office point to the first term not the second.
It's fair to say that second-term Presidents have a harder time getting their agenda through Congress, but the problem as I see it is that the presidency is itself too powerful without any legislative assistance. The 2006 midterm election results were widely interpreted as a repudiation of Bush's Iraq policy, but Democrats were unable to change that policy due to the structural feature of the President's control of the armed forces and his near-complete control of military and foreign policy in general. As a result, voters were forced to wait an additional two years to get the chance to change course in Iraq. The hash that the administration appears to have made of the first half of the Wall St. bailout money (TARP) is another case in which structural features of U.S. government have left critical decisions in the hands of a deeply unpopular official with essentially no remaining political legitimacy.
They got this right once. Roosevelt was grandfathered in and the 22nd amendment did not affect him.
-dk
How could amending the Constitution be necessary for government to operate within constitutional bounds?
Actually, the 22nd Amendment's grandfathering clause applied to Truman, as he was in office when the amendment was ratified (1951).
Keep the 2nd
Use the guns to shoot all the liberals (they don't have any guns to fight back with so this will be easy.)
Repeal ALL the Amendments
Follow the Constitution as originally written
The problem with what you meant as provocative actually comes across as sounding idiotic.
The first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) were proposed by the first Congress and certainly were no surprise.
The next five were adopted to deal with specific problems that arose (this little thing called the Civil War, perhaps you heard of it, being the biggest).
I am sorry Archon, I most certainly DO NOT want to live in a country without most of the subsequent amendments.
Are you sure you want to go into Myth Busters, right here, right now?"
Sounds like fun, but this isn't the blog for fiction and alternate history....
Here in New York, it's even a disaster when the legislature tries to pass a trafic law. Leave the 17th alone!!
We can get a pretty good idea of how close elections have to be in order for a recount to change the result by looking at state and local elections. For example, in MN the swing from Coleman to Franken was about 450 votes out of over 2.9 million. If you multiply that out to the number of voters in 2008, a presidential election would have to fall within 25000 votes. No presidential election has ever been even remotely that close (in percentage terms). For example, the gap in 1960 (adjusting for population) was roughly 225,000, and that's as close as it gets. There's a good safety margin there -- a factor of more than 10.
As for the conduct of a recount, that's easy. Once the EC is abolished, Congress can set the conditions of a recount and mandate that it be nationwide.
That the post-midterm election congress was unable to change the direction of the war on terror/radical_islam/etc should generally be considered a feature not a bug. While it is true that the president was deeply unpopular at that time (and remains so) the congress was *even more* unpopular and proposed essentially no well-supported meaningful change to the policy of the time.
The midterm elections did indicate unpopularity with congress that unpopularity was not clearly confined to prosecution of the war but also to many domestic matters. I.e. while interpreted by many as a repudiation of the war in Iraq, it was also interpreted as a repudiation of the *conduct* of the war (not its necessity) and of domestic policy. While there was a mandate for change, the direction of that change was hardly clear. For instance the circles in which I move were largely unhappy with the president but mainly for domestic policy reasons or frustration with the poor initial conduct of the war...not with the concept of eliminating America-directed terrorism by creating a leverage point in the heart of the middle east.
As practical matters; politicians of any stripe make poor generals and war cannot be successfully managed by committee. The constitution recognizes this and 'firewalls' the defense department from Congress via the executive branch. Both the Executive and Legislative must be aligned before a war can be started and both branches must be aligned before the direction can be changed (or the war judged complete). That slows down the decision cycle long enough to enable the defense department to execute its task effectively.
I would really like to see Methodact's evidence that Ronald Reagan pushed this during his term, as I don't recall that (as opposed to other people pushing it as people pushed the idea in President Clinton's second term.)
I suspect that, had it been ratified, it would have grandfathered Reagan (or Clinton) and prior Presidents out. And I suspect that if this were introduced during Pres. Obama's (or any future President's) term, it would grandfather that President and any former Presidents out as well.
If, say, Cheney had won the presidency last fall, with Dems in control of both houses, I could see the first of those. But with Dems in Congress, and a Democratic star in the White House, I doubt there will be any interest. Especially since GOPers always assume that, in the long run, their party will produce more presidents.
Despite anything that Obama and his supporters said during the campaign, they will not want any new restrictions on the executive branch now they control it. [I'm willing to wager good coin on this. Any takers?]
On the second, I don't see much of a groundswell for a foreign-born president.
Some possibilities(?):
Restrictions on end-of-term pardons by the president;
The "God Forbid Amendment," to provide a means of quickly replacing any large number of Members and Senators killed on a single day;
Some clarification of what does and does not constitute "establishment" of a church or state religion, especially with regard to public schools.
Or the one that is seriously overdue: Representatives to be apportioned by counting the number of Hoosiers residing in the state. (I suspect Ohio would come out on top. But what the hell, right?)
Yes sir/mam.
That's exactly why the idea of one six-year term for the president is not a wise idea. Four years of a lame-duck can be trouble enough. But if Obama became a lame-duck immediately upon saying "So help me God," I doubt that the cause of democracy and the people's will would benefit greatly.
You made a specific charge about Ronald Reagan -- "Ronald Reagan tried to disingenuously push this agenda in order to stay overtime." Do you happen to have any support for this charge, as opposed to general criticisms of Reagan on other grounds?
Whether his judicial appointments, fiscal policies, foreign policy, or anything else was sound or unsound is not relevant to that question. You made a specific factual assertion. Could you please provide your evidence?
No presidential candidate in a tight race has ever attempted to maximize his popular vote without any concern for the electoral college.
if Obama became a lame-duck immediately upon saying "So help me God," I doubt that the cause of democracy and the people's will would benefit greatly.
The cause of liberty, on the other hand, would do ok.
A single 4-year term for the state executive gives the legislative branch, where there are no term limits, additional de facto power (whether that's good or bad is another issue). It means that the incoming governor's power starts to erode from day one. Single terms certainly tend to impede "bold initiatives" by governors, since there's simply no time to ramp up and implement massive changes. In that way, one could argue that such strict term limits are "conservative" in the best sense of the word. It is also strangely liberating, as the governor is freed to some extent from having to pander to the party or various interest groups for the purpose of re-election (leaving aside George Allen's and Mark Warner's obvious lust for Senate seats while still in the Governor's Mansion). If you subscribe to the maxim that the government that governs least governs best, this is a net positive.
I'd also note that relative to most states, Virginia has tended to stay out of major fiscal trouble, has comparatively reasonable taxes, fairly low crime rates (leaving aside some bad neighborhoods in Richmond), and is in the top 5 on most lists for business growth. Coincidence?
Incidentally: for those advocating abolition of term limits -- if the 22nd Amendment hadn't been in effect in 2000, Bill Clinton would likely have been re-elected. Would have continued most of his earlier policies and initiatives (except perhaps those involving White House interns?). Would have been Commander-in-Chief on 9/11. And would have been in the White House when he needed his emergency heart bypass surgery in September, 2004. Hillary never would have run for Senate from New York in 2000 at the same time her husband was also running for re-election. Would this have been net good or bad? You decide - that decision is above my pay grade. ;~)
The idea that Democrats were elected in 2006 to pull the country out of Iraq but were unable to do so because of a lack of power is absurd. The Dems could have easily accomplished this the same way they did so with Vietnam by cutting off funding. Not doing so was purely a political calculation in that they did not want to be accused of failing to fund the troops and they did not want to risk the gains they expected in 2008.
Wahooah's reasoning about term limits is inconsistent because he is saying that on the one hand term limits will cause a president to run amok without accountability and on the other hand he is saying that term limits will cause a president to be an ineffective lame duck. But if one of these is true, then the other is much less likely to be the case or at least be a problem.
I think Pres. Reagan had a hard enough time remembering his own name in his second term and it is highly unlikely that he was scheming to extend his term.
And finally, maybe my memory of the late 90's and 2000 is off but I have a hard time believing that Clinton was in such a good position for a third term. My memory is that Clinton fatigue was the only reason that Bush even stood a chance in the election running against a sitting vice president during a time of an apparently long run of peace and prosperity. I remember Gore's biggest handicap was Clinton and he had to try to distance himself from Clinton the same way McCain had to work to distance himself from Bush.
True, I suppose, but state and local candidates do this all the time. That's why we can use those races to get a sense of how close elections need to be for a recount to affect the result.
For instance, Washington, Wyoming, and Montana all failed to elect Senator in for the term starting in 1893, until January 1895.
I like the 2 term max as it is. That job is too much for anyone for 8 years, let alone 12. Lame duck status aside, just look at Clinton, Bush, and Reagan int heir second terms, when their energy was pretty much sapped.
I actually like that idea, with the addition that the 2 senate votes go to the overall winner in the state so there remains some reason to go after states also. However this would fracture the power of the largest states just as abolishing the EC would break the power of the smallest so I don't see it going anywhere.
In what state do you live?
Term limits on Congressmen is an idea with wide support, but will never become reality, for the same reasons that everybody hates Congress, but loves their own Congressman.
I believe that the nation would be better served if seniority were completely disregarded, and replaced by margin-of-election, whether in absolute or percentage terms. Or even better, not replaced by anything at all, leaving the decision of who is to be the Speaker, or President-pro-tempore, or the Chairman of the Committee on XYZ up to the individual judgment of those to whom we have entrusted with the responsibility of speaking for us.
(That said, I have to agree with earlier posters that I would sooner see the 17th Amendment repealed than the 22nd. Although our Constitution holds itself out as an agreement amongst the citizens who agree to be bound by it, there is still much of a flavor of independent states compacting for mutual benefit. The 17th Amendment destroyed the genius of the Great Compromise, and undermined the "politics of personal acquaintance" that figured so prominently in the Federalist Papers.)
You don't need a Constitutional amendment to abolish the EC.
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