H. J. Res. 5 Would Amend Constitution and Remove Limitation on Presidential Terms
Rep. Jose Serrano, D-NY, would make President Barack Obama President for life. Earlier this month the Congressman introduced H. J. Res. 5 that proposes an amendment to the US Constitution that would repeal the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President
The U. S. House Committee on the Judiciary is considering the bill.
In 1807, Thomas Jefferson warned that presidents not bound by term limits could use their popularity and power to become kings.
Jefferson wrote that: “If termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution or supplied in practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life: and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance.”
The original Constitution did not contain term limits for Presidents; however Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only President to be elected for more than two terms. Following his death in office, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment on March 21, 1947. The Amendment was ratified by the required number of states on February 26, 1951.
The 22nd Amendment states: “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.”
Should the Democrats succeed in repealing the 22nd Amendment, Obama could run for an unlimited number of terms, limited only by votes of the electorate.
President Lyndon Johnson served less than two years of the remaining Kennedy term, therefore was eligible to seek a second term, but declined to do so. In order to repeal the 22nd Amendment, it must be passed by the Congress and approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states’ legislatures.
http://www.timesexaminer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=968&Itemid=41
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