Just one particular person, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has ever served greater than two phrases as president of america. That is for 2 causes.
First, previous to Roosevelt’s election to a 3rd time period in 1940 there used to be a longstanding American custom that presidents now not serve greater than two phrases.
This custom used to be established through the selections of early presidents similar to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to not search a 3rd time period. This custom used to be later followed through different presidents.
2d, after Roosevelt died in administrative center in 1945 all through his fourth time period, Congress and the folk of america made up our minds to show the long-standing custom that presidents must now not serve greater than two phrases into part of constitutional regulation.
This used to be carried out during the passage and ratification of the twenty second Modification, which was a part of the U.S. Charter in 1951.
Handiest after the demise of President Franklin Roosevelt, who died in 1945 in his fourth time period and whose casket is observed right here, did the U.S. codify the two-term prohibit on presidents.
AP photograph
Intent is obvious
The important thing provision of the twenty second Modification reads as follows: “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.”
The intent is obvious. Nobody is meant to serve greater than two complete phrases as president.
The one approach any person can serve greater than two phrases is that if they served lower than two years in a prior time period through which they weren’t elected president.
Right here’s an instance: If a vp turns into president all through the general yr of a time period since the president died, that vp may just nonetheless run for 2 phrases. However that exception continues to be intended to bar any individual from serving greater than a complete of 10 years as president.
It’s value figuring out why the two-term custom used to be thought to be so necessary that it used to be became constitutional regulation the primary time it used to be violated.
Beginning the custom
Commentators frequently cite George Washington’s choice to not search a 3rd time period as president as organising the two-term custom. Political scientist and time period prohibit student Michael Korzi provides much more credit score to the country’s 3rd president, Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson used to be outspoken in prefer of the two-term custom. As Korzi notes, this used to be, partially, as a result of “Jefferson saw little distinction between a long-serving executive in an elective position and a hereditary monarch.” In different phrases, a president with out time period limits is simply too just like a king.
John Trumbull’s portrait of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who believed {that a} president who used to be prepared to damage the two-term custom used to be too bold.
John Trumbull/GraphicaArtis, Getty Photographs
Jefferson noticed a president who used to be prepared to damage the two-term custom as energy hungry, and he was hoping that the American other folks would now not elect one of these president. This led him to jot down in his autobiography in 1821 that “should a President consent to be a candidate for a 3d. election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views.”
Jefferson additionally fearful that with out time period limits, presidents would keep in administrative center too lengthy into their outdated age and when they had misplaced their talent to control successfully. This led him to jot down that with out time period limits, there used to be a risk that “the indulgence and attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard.”
Due to this fact, presidents tended to abide through the two-term custom. And within the few instances the place presidents made up our minds to hunt a 3rd time period, their very own events would now not give them the nomination.
That remained true till Roosevelt ran for, and received, each a 3rd and a fourth time period as president all through International Conflict II.
The twenty second Modification
Roosevelt’s violation of the two-term custom brought about Congress and the states to show the custom into a proper subject of constitutional regulation.
A significant worry motivating the modification used to be the similar one who motivated Jefferson: to stop a president from turning into a king. A couple of participants of Congress recognized the similar worry all through congressional periods within the Nineteen Forties.
Sen. Chapman Revercomb from West Virginia mentioned that energy given to a president with out time period limits “would be a definite step in the direction of autocracy, regardless of the name given the office, whether it be president, king, dictator, emperor, or whatever title the office may carry.”
In a similar fashion, Rep. Edward McCowen from Ohio stated that the twenty second Modification could be “a great step toward preventing a dictatorship or some totalitarian form of government from arising.”
And Rep. John Jennings Jr. from Tennessee mentioned that most effective through adoption of the twenty second Modification “can the people be assured that we shall never have a dictator in this land.”
Congress handed the twenty second Modification on March 21, 1947. It took lower than 4 years for the essential three-fourths of the states to ratify the modification, which was regulation on Feb. 27, 1951.
President Donald Trump has again and again mentioned getting a 3rd time period as president.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP by the use of Getty Photographs
Tyrants and time period prohibit violations
Within the Eighties, political scientist Juan Linz recognized that presidential programs are much less solid than different sorts of democracy, similar to parliamentary programs. The adaptation appears to be that presidential programs listen extra energy within the palms of a unmarried particular person, the president. This makes it more straightforward to take away the assessments and balances that democracies rely on.
As students have famous, violation of presidential time period limits and different strategies of accelerating govt energy are a not unusual type of democratic backsliding – state-led debilitation or removing of the political establishments that maintain a democracy.
Legislation professor Mila Versteeg and her colleagues have proven that lately presidents around the world have used quite a lot of ways to check out to violate presidential time period limits. Those ways come with seeking to amend their nation’s charter, seeking to get the courts to reinterpret the charter, discovering a substitute chief who the previous president can regulate as soon as out of administrative center and making an attempt to prolong elections.
They observe that more often than not when a president’s try to violate time period limits fails it’s “because the attempt encountered widespread popular resistance.” They conclude that this discovering means that “broad resistance movements” is also the most efficient manner to stop violation of presidential time period limits.
