Could Obama be first 3-term president since FDR?

Pub­lished: 08 Jan­u­ary, 2013, 01:30 by RT.com

A United States con­gress­man has intro­duced a bill that would repeal the 22nd Amend­ment, which cur­rently lim­its the pres­i­dent to serv­ing only two terms as commander-in-chief.

Should the bill become a law, it could allow Pres­i­dent Barack Obama to run for reelec­tion yet again in 2016.

The bill, H.J. Res. 15, offers “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.”

New York Demo­c­ra­tic Rep. Jose Ser­rano rein­tro­duced the mea­sure on Jan­u­ary 4, after it did not make it to a floor vote in Jan­u­ary 2011, the Daily Caller reports. Ser­rano has attempted to repeal the amend­ment for decades and pro­posed sim­i­lar bills in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007.

Rep. Serrano’s ini­tia­tives are not depen­dent on any par­tic­u­lar party, since he has tried to get the mea­sure passed under the pres­i­den­cies of both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans. But if the bill makes it to the floor for a vote this year, Pres­i­dent Obama, a Demo­c­rat, might have a chance at a third term in the White House, which would make him the first pres­i­dent to pos­si­bly seek a third term since Franklin Roosevelt.

Even though a repeal has not made it far in Con­gress, there have been sev­eral attempts at bring­ing it to the floor, which have gar­nered sup­port from past pres­i­dents and promi­nent leg­is­la­tors. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) repeat­edly pro­posed repeal­ing the 22nd Amend­ment while both Bill Clin­ton and George W. Bush were in office, and Sen­ate Minor­ity Leader Mitch McConnell tried to repeal it in 1995. In 1989, Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) intro­duced a sim­i­lar resolution.

For­mer Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan told Bar­bara Wal­ters in a 1986 inter­view that the 22nd Amend­ment “was a mis­take,” while for­mer Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton has always believed in the option for a pres­i­dent to seek reelec­tion at a later time – even if he has already served twice.

“Shouldn’t a pres­i­dent be able to take two terms, take time off and run again?” Clin­ton said in an MSNBC inter­view in Novem­ber. “I’ve always thought that should be the rule. I think as a prac­ti­cal mat­ter, you couldn’t apply this to any­one who has already served, but going for­ward, I per­son­ally believe that should be the rule.”

Repeal­ing the 22nd Amend­ment has been sup­ported by both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, but has never gar­nered enough votes to go into effect.

Con­gress passed the 22nd Amend­ment on March 21, 1947. It was rat­i­fied by 41 states and rejected by only two. It lim­its each pres­i­dent to two terms, but did not apply to the sit­ting pres­i­dent, for­mer Pres­i­dent Harry Tru­man, who with­drew as a can­di­date for re-election in 1952.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Jan 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.