Just one particular person, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has ever served greater than two phrases as president of the USA. That is for 2 causes.
First, previous to Roosevelt’s election to a 3rd time period in 1940 there was a longstanding American custom that presidents not serve greater than two phrases.
This custom was established by the selections of early presidents reminiscent of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to not search a 3rd time period. This custom was later adopted by different presidents.
Second, after Roosevelt died in workplace in 1945 throughout his fourth time period, Congress and the folks of the USA determined to show the long-standing custom that presidents shouldn’t serve greater than two phrases into part of constitutional regulation.
This was executed by the passage and ratification of the twenty second Modification, which turned a part of the U.S. Structure in 1951.
Solely after the demise of President Franklin Roosevelt, who died in 1945 in his fourth time period and whose casket is seen right here, did the U.S. codify the two-term restrict on presidents.
AP photograph
Intent is evident
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 evident. Nobody is meant to serve greater than two full phrases as president.
The one manner somebody can serve greater than two phrases is that if they served lower than two years in a earlier time period during which they weren’t elected president.
Right here’s an instance: If a vice chairman turns into president in the course of the closing 12 months of a time period as a result of the president died, that vice chairman may nonetheless run for 2 phrases. However that exception remains to be meant to bar anybody from serving greater than a complete of 10 years as president.
It’s value understanding why the two-term custom was thought of so essential that it was was constitutional regulation the primary time it was violated.
Beginning the custom
Commentators usually cite George Washington’s determination to not search a 3rd time period as president as establishing the two-term custom. Political scientist and time period restrict scholar Michael Korzi provides much more credit score to the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson was outspoken in favor of the two-term custom. As Korzi notes, this was, partly, 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 an excessive amount of like a king.
John Trumbull’s portrait of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who believed {that a} president who was keen to interrupt the two-term custom was too formidable.
John Trumbull/GraphicaArtis, Getty Photos
Jefferson noticed a president who was keen to interrupt the two-term custom as energy hungry, and he hoped that the American folks wouldn’t elect such a president. This led him to write 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 workplace too lengthy into their outdated age and after that they had misplaced their potential to control successfully. This led him to write down that with out time period limits, there was a hazard that “the indulgence and attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard.”
Subsequently, presidents tended to abide by the two-term custom. And within the few instances the place presidents determined to hunt a 3rd time period, their very own events wouldn’t give them the nomination.
That remained true till Roosevelt ran for, and gained, each a 3rd and a fourth time period as president throughout World Struggle II.
The twenty second Modification
Roosevelt’s violation of the two-term custom prompted Congress and the states to show the custom into a proper matter of constitutional regulation.
A significant concern motivating the modification was the identical one which motivated Jefferson: to stop a president from changing into a king. A number of members of Congress recognized the identical concern throughout congressional classes within the Nineteen Forties.
Sen. Chapman Revercomb from West Virginia said 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.”
Equally, 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 said that solely by 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 required three-fourths of the states to ratify the modification, which turned regulation on Feb. 27, 1951.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly talked about getting a 3rd time period as president.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Photos
Tyrants and time period restrict violations
Within the Eighties, political scientist Juan Linz recognized that presidential techniques are much less secure than different types of democracy, reminiscent of parliamentary techniques. The distinction appears to be that presidential techniques focus extra energy within the arms of a single particular person, the president. This makes it simpler to take away the checks and balances that democracies rely upon.
As students have famous, violation of presidential time period limits and different strategies of accelerating govt energy are a standard type of democratic backsliding – state-led debilitation or elimination of the political establishments that maintain a democracy.
Legislation professor Mila Versteeg and her colleagues have proven that in recent times presidents across the globe have used numerous techniques to attempt to violate presidential time period limits. These techniques embody making an attempt to amend their nation’s structure, making an attempt to get the courts to reinterpret the structure, discovering a substitute chief who the previous president can management as soon as out of workplace and trying to delay 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 implies that “broad resistance movements” could also be the perfect means to stop violation of presidential time period limits.
