Hope and Change: Move to repeal presidential term limits started
posted at 5:00 pm on January 13, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Maybe I’m just being too cynical, but somehow I doubt that Rep. José Serrano introduced HJ Res 5in order to allow George W Bush to run for a third term in office. One week ago, the New York Democrat introduced a measure to repeal the 22nd Ammendment, which provides the only term limit on federal office — the Presidency. The amendment, added in 1951, restricts anyone from seeking a third term in office, and Serrano wants that repealed.
Why now? Apparently, the notion of Hope and Change has overwhelmed Serrano to the point that he just can’t stand to see Barack Obama limited to two terms in office. Never mind the fact that Obama has yet to start his first term, and no one knows yet whether he’d get re-elected in 2012. Maybe it’s that New Deal vibe; Serrano may want to prepare the way for a more tangible comparison between Obama and FDR in 2016 and 2020.
Of course, a repeal wouldn’t just apply to Obama. What other former President might decide he wants to return to the White House? Someone who couldn’t quite close the deal by having his wife run for the office?
Normally, I don’t like term limits, but the office of the presidency has enough power to make the 22nd Amendment a reasonable limitation on it. So far, no one has added themselves as a cosponsor to Serrano’s bill, but if any do, perhaps Democrats might want to explain why they suddenly have a yen for Hugo Chavez-style executives after screeching hysterically about Bush’s ideas of the “unitary executive,” which they completely misunderstood anyway.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj111-5
Proposing 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.
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am22
Amendment 22 - Presidential Term Limits. Ratified 2/27/1951. History
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.
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.
change we can........what?
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