He’s only been in office for a few days, but Rep. Andy Ogles has already begun thinking about another term. The Tennessee congressman has introduced a constitutional amendment aimed at allowing former President Donald Trump to seek a third term in office. The amendment would modify the 22nd Amendment, which currently limits presidents to two terms, but would exclude former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton due to their consecutive two-term presidencies.
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 in response to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s unprecedented four-term presidency, states that no person can be elected president more than twice. Ogles’ proposed change would allow presidents to serve up to three terms, with a provision barring individuals from seeking a consecutive third term if they have already served two consecutive terms.
The proposed amendment reads: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, 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 twice.”
This would make Trump, currently serving his second non-consecutive term, eligible for another run. However, Obama, Bush, and Clinton, who each served two back-to-back terms, would remain ineligible.
The proposal faces steep challenges, writes The Washington Examiner. “Ogles’s resolution would require the support of two-thirds of the House and Senate along with three-fourths of the states. The congressman will likely not receive the support needed in Congress given that the 215 Democrats in the House and the 47 Democrat-aligned members in the Senate will likely vote against the bill.”
Trump is only the second president in U.S. history to serve non-consecutive terms, following Grover Cleveland, who was both the 22nd and 24th president.
