The Twenty-Second Amendment

XXII
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 the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the 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.


This amendment is interesting to me based on when people are against it. There are people who were mad about the amendment after Reagan's second term; there are people who wish Obama could serve again now. One article I read where they wanted a third term for Bill Clinton referred to the Republican passage of the bill after Roosevelt's death as sneaky.

I remain convinced that a two-term limit is a good idea. I am not a strong advocate of term limits for Congress, but for executive positions - president, governor, mayor - not going beyond two terms seems like a good idea.

The reasoning generally given for the limit is to avoid the appearance of a ruling dynasty, coming too close to monarchy. I see the value in that, but there are other more practical reasons.

Roosevelt did not live out his elected terms. If Reagan had tried a third term, he might have lived but his Alzheimer's disease was overtaking him. We had enough presidential incapacity with Woodrow Wilson.

You may not be able to predict how the health of any individual will go, but you can't rule out that the strain of a prolonged presidency might bring health problems on. Take a look sometimes at pictures of two-term presidents and see how they have aged from the time of their own inauguration to that of their successor. Eight years should show anyway, probably, but would it show that much? Even in the case of George W. Bush, whom you could argue offloaded a lot of the responsibility to his vice president and cabinet, showed the strain.

There is a huge pressure on the president, even beyond times of partisan gridlock. How often does the president have to make life and death decisions? And it's not a matter of choosing life over death, but of choosing how many deaths or which deaths. And then, no matter what you choose, some people will think you're a butcher and some will think you're weak and ineffective simultaneously.

If we value their work and their humanity, even the best president should have a chance to take a rest after eight years. Bear in mind, that rest may be monitoring elections, building homes for the homeless, working to make AIDS treatment affordable and lowering the price of malaria treatment. They have learned about the world and its problems while in office and they have made connections. Setting the presidential responsibilities aside and focusing on the area of their choice can usher in a lifetime of great usefulness and joy. Let them have that.

Two terms is enough.