It could happen
As most voting Americans who use secured loans and cash loans are aware, a president can currently serve no more than two consecutive four-year terms in office. In extreme circumstances (such as the death or removal of the president), the limit is raised to 10 years for the successor. This is mandated by the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, and was put in place not long after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s time in office ended. Roosevelt actually died in office. The Amendment was proposed on March 21, 1947 and eventually ratified on February 26, 1951.
Why was the 22nd Amendment introduced? Congress was concerned that without term limits, the president would have the power to become a dictator. Thomas Jefferson foresaw this problem in 1807, and he warned that presidents not bound by term limits could use their popularity and power to become kings. In his words to the U.S. legislature at the time,
If some 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.
Now, we have a new cult of personality in America in the leadership of Barack Obama. And we also have a movement underway in Congress that could seek to repeal the 22nd Amendment and make Obama the king of America.
He claims he isn’t…
World Net Daily (WND) reports that while President Obama supports the idea of term limits. This comes straight from the mouth of his chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs. Les Kinsolving of WND asked this question at a recent White House press briefing:
Does the president support New York Democrat Congressman José Serrano’s House Joint Resolution No. 5… That’s the (repeal) of the 22nd Amendment. Does he support this – because Steny Hoyer in 2006 came out in favor of it – does he support the repeal of the 22nd Amendment?
Gibbs’ response?
This is to serve more – this is for two terms?… I think the president is firmly in support of an amendment that would limit his time in the presidency to eight years if he’s given that awesome responsibility by the American people.
What is Rep. Serrano proposing?
Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., introduced House Resolution 5 back in January. It proposes “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.”
There it is, cut and dry. If Serrano succeeds in repealing the Amendment by securing a two-thirds vote of the Senate and House as well as 3/4 of state legislatures, Obama would be allowed to run for an unlimited number of terms. Only the vote of the electorate would be able to remove him.
Does Obama want this?
Hyde Park strongman Franklin van Roosevelt
His staff says one thing, but Obama hints at another. Take the recent coup that threw Honduras President Manuel Zelaya out of office. Zelaya violated his country’s Constitution on numerous counts. President Obama said the following:
We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there.
But the interim government in Honduras says otherwise. Roberto Micheletti, who was named to serve out the final seven months of the deposed president’s term, insists that foreign powers do not interfere in their course toward democratic elections – like in Iran 
. Micheletti claims that Zelaya’s dismissal was legal, voted upon by the Congress of Honduras.
So does Obama favor keeping questionable rulers in office? It doesn’t appear that he’ll be steering American toward strong action against Ahmadinejad for the clearly farcical Iranian election, so perhaps he does. How much of a leap is it to assume that he wouldn’t support repealing the 22nd Amendment? Get your secured loans and cash loans now, because if Obama becomes king, he’ll ban them because they aren’t part of the plan for the world banking establishment (which has been doing so well, by the way)…
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Plain and simple=Obama won’t serve a second term.Obama regards the constitution as nothing more than just a piece of paper.Our Government?? Blind leaders of the blind.
wow,do you realize that the amendment was passed before because people kept voting F.D.R. in as president?i dont think you know what u are talking about.it is not like if this was passed then the current president now or at the time it was passed would be in there for life.we would still have elections and everything like we do now,its just that there wouldnt be a limit on it.if the american people like the president the same way they liked F.D.R. then we are going to keep him in,but if we dont like them then we can vote them out.simple as that.
I just hope there are some people in congress that aren’t yet swayed by the Obama admin.’s bs. I dont think that Obama realises half the things that he does.
Peter,
The Constitution did not define what constitutes an ex post facto law. The Courts have said that an ex post facto law makes an act a criminal offense after the fact. With few exceptions, civil matters are not affected.
Term limits are not criminal matters and are therefore not subject to any ex post facto considerations, and a repeal of the 22nd Amendment would therefore not create any ex post facto condition.
The fact that the 22nd Amendment is in effect at the time a particular president is inaugurated would have no effect on that president’s ability to subsequently be elected to serve any number of terms if the 22nd Amendment were to be repealed during his time in office.
I don’t think that the Congressman’s bill will go anywhere (it hasn’t so far), but it is frightening to think that we have members of Congress who think like Hugo Chavez.
Also, the 22nd Amendment counts a VP elevated to the office of president as a term for the purposes of the 22nd Amendment if, and only if, the VP serves more than 2 years of the term for which the outgoing president was elected, which was the case for Gerald Ford, who served 2.5 years of of the term for which Richard Nixon was elected.
Finally, I worked on the Y2K problem, and there was plenty of reason to be concerned. The fact that we had no major problems is a testament to the staggering amount of work that several million computer programmers did in a very short period of time.
John, perhaps I was mistaken, and the amendment process doesn’t require Presidential approval – if you are right, then my mistake.
However – I know for a fact that he would not be affected by a repeal of the 22nd amendment, even if the amendment – which by now has died in committee – were to be enacted during his first or second term. I’ve known it the entire time, and everyone else should have known this one too.
Part of the Constitution is that “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
Article I, sec. 9. Sec 10 restricts the respective States from doing this likewise.
What that means: “ex post facto,” or after the fact. (Latin.) An ex post facto law is a law passed that makes some action legal or illegal, and applies retroactively. For example, say you own a red car. A law is passed that makes owning or driving red cars illegal, and therefore, since you have one, it’s illegal to have. A law against ex post facto laws makes it so that, in this instance, buying or driving a red car would be illegal after the law went into effect, but anyone that bought or drove one before the law passed cannot be punished for it, since it wasn’t illegal at the time.
So – how does this relate to Obama? The 22nd Amendment puts term limits of a maximum of two (2) terms on any US President, in any configuration, even if a VP assumed the Presidency, that counts as a term. For instance, Gerald Ford couldn’t have run again in 1980 had he not lost to Carter in 1976. So, therefore, Obama, as the sitting president during the passage of the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, would still have it apply to him for the remainder of his Presidency, even up to the maximum of two terms. So even if the 22nd were repealed, he could not serve more than two (2) terms because the 22nd Amendment was in effect at the time of his inauguration, and therefore, he could not be exempted as it would be ex post facto – and ex post facto laws cannot be passed.
And no, it doesn’t remind me in the least of Hugo Chavez, and Obama wasn’t in favor of repealing the 22nd Amendment. It’s a crackpot Rep from New York that introduces this same bill every two years, and has done so since 1997. It usually never makes to committee, or dies there, which it seems to have done again, though this time (it has before) it actually made it to committee, but (once again) has died there. What this reminds me of is Y2K, where a bunch of people that were presumably smart enough didn’t think anything through and panicked for no good reason at all. Or when Orson Welles read The War of the Worlds, and people thought Martians were really invading.
Mr. Stone,
First, the President does not sign proposed constitutional amendments. He has no role to play in their enactment, other than by speaking out in favor of or against the proposed amendment.
Second, what makes you believe that he would be unaffected by the repeal of the 22nd amendment? If the 22nd amendment were repealed, there would be no constitutional prohibition against Obama’s repeated election.
Sounds just like Hugo Chavez, doesn’t it?
I hope your all right but remember that first, who ever thought we would have a black president and second, even though most of US was against the stimulus plan it went through and we know how well that thing is working. When OBs socialist govt overtake of our health care gets passed (even tho’ most of people don’t want it) you will see that since OB took office, anything is possible because he has not only the media in his back pocket but also has most of OUR elected govt officials. We gave evil an inch and he is taking it all the way.
Then they will repeal it when the republicans get into office , 2 terms is enough , 100 days was enough for me , it was a bad idea that has got worse.
JEDI – they won’t need to repeal it – it hasn’t passed and it won’t. The Representative who submitted this bill, Jose Serrano, submits this same bill every two years since 1997. It never gets out of committee, it never gets a hearing, it hasn’t passed and will not pass. You can’t repeal a law which hasn’t passed. Once again, it has not passed. The filibuster proof Senate doesn’t matter in this case. It didn’t get past committee, even when the almighty Republicans (he scoffed quietly) were the majority in both houses a few years ago. It’s a panic over nothing. Once again, it has not passed, and it will not pass – it won’t get out of committee.
Carol, you are correct – I left a bit out. In order to Ratify an Amendment to the Constitution, it has to pass both Houses of Congress with no less than a 2/3 majority. If it passes Congress (and therefore gets Presidential approval) it then must be ratified by no less than 3/4 of all state legislatures, who may decide to have the citizens vote via referendum.
And Pat….what are you TALKING about? What Bankruptcy rules did he change? Also, our freedoms are far less safe due to the so-called Patriot Act – which constitutes a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment, among others (warrants and searches, trial by Jury, right to counsel, speedy trial, etc.), proposed and enacted by Bush, Jr. (Additionally, Iraq was invaded under the pretense of the War Powers Act, which is unconstitutional – “Only Congress shall have the power to levy and make War”.)
Also, unions ahead of teachers…what unions? WHICH unions? Because the last time I checked, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) is part of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the largest union umbrella organization in the world) and so is the IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters)…so I’m confused as to what union you could possibly be referring to. (Unless it’s the United Labor of Fantasy Land, where you may be residing.) Since the United Auto Workers is also part of the AFL-CIO, they wouldn’t do anything to step on other member unions or allowing such action to be done on their behalf.
There are no provisions that prevent the power to give aid, and there aren’t any provisions (by that, I mean laws passed by Congress incl. the Constitution) that say that any aid given can’t have conditions attached to it. And conservative fascism is better than liberal fascism, is that what we’re meant to infer?
When has what is Legal stopped Obama??? Taking over private industry and banks…changing the Bankruptcy rules to suit his own interest…he is stepping on the constitution and our freedoms every day….putting Unions ahead of 401K plans of Teachers and firefighters…He wants to be DICTATOR forever and he is marching this passive bunch of sheep to Liberal Fascism.
Pat, you are so right! The legality or illegality of something does not deter him in the least. Now that he has the filibuster-proof 60 votes in Congress and will soon have an “empathetic” Supreme Court justice who legislates from the bench, it seems there will be no stopping him. I shudder to think what is next in store for us and this country. I used to kid that we were not taxed for breathing because the government had not yet figured out a way to implement such a tax, and now, voila!, we have Cap and Trade (or Cap and Tax).
There’s no way I’m not right – that’s the way the law works. There’s a provision in the Constitution for no ex post facto laws, meaning after the fact. It’s also referred to as grandfathering – in that when an amendment to an existing law is passed, that which would be affected right then and there is exempted. In essence, even if the amendment were to go anywhere – and it will die on the House floor, if it even gets a hearing – Obama might be able to get away with signing it, but even so would not be affected by its passage, because he wouldn’t count – see how that works? And yes, I know about Chicago politics, but there’s no way it would happen.
Doesn’t an amendment to the Constitution have to be voted on by the people? I seem to remember the Equal Rights Amendment being on the ballot in 1976. I didn’t think it was exclusively up to Congress whether amendments pass or not. Sometimes certain amendments get a longer time to be ratified (for some reason, 7 years sticks in my mind as the usual time period), such as the XXVIII Amendment, which was proposed as part of the Bill of Rights on 09/25/1789 and not officially ratified until 05/07/1992 by the state of Michigan (it got 200+ years to be ratified!) and the ERA. In any event, I certainly hope you are correct in what you wrote. As for the Supreme Court, when the “Wise Latina” is confirmed, I can’t see the court shooting this down. I would not put anything past Our Dear Leader and his sycophants in Congress.
Sorry, it was the XXVII Amendment. I put too many “I”’s in the Roman Numeral.
i hope your right, but to put your arguement to shame. It is very scary to think that we elected a lawer from one of the most corrupt political states in the country, ever heard of Chicago politics. Also that governor from that remote state to the north has more experience for the #1 seat than any of the other candidates, mostly because she had already run a business, city, and state before her run for the #2 seat. Which means she actually knows how to run a budget, unlike these whack jobs who think there is a way in hell to spend your way out of a overspending problem. And im not just blaming the current administration, but she has the only record of going after her own party and has actually made the alaskans lives better and easier. because she wants to leave them alone to grow and prosper with out the gov’t in there way. By the way if they want to show us that they dont support the repeal of the 22nd amendment then stop trying to help that rat that was kicked out of Honduras, legally NO COUP!!!!!When the Supreme Court, Congress, and There constitution, say the man is a trader then he is gone. He should just have enough guts to step down like Nixon did.
no kidding
First off, this amendment is not going to pass. Second, even if it were to, it wouldn’t apply to Obama, and he also wouldn’t be able to legally sign it, which would be a major conflict of interest. Now since Obama went to law school, and Harvard Law at that – unlike certain Presidents I could mention and also certain wannabes that are governors of remote US states far to the north that aren’t known for their intellectual prowess – he knows it, and therefore wouldn’t sign it. It won’t pass, and if it did, Obama wouldn’t sign it, and if he did, it would shot down in flames by the Supreme Court. So before the conspiracy theorists get going, it can’t legally happen, even by Amendment.