Obviously, that’s not happening; he’d be 82, for one thing. But my question is not about Trump himself - it’s whether the term limit clock gets set back to zero if there a one-term president runs again after there has been one or more terms of a different president.
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.
Nope. As per the Twenty-Second Amendment:
Constitution says no.
I think someone can be president for up to 10 years but that would mean a VP took office when a president died (or stepped down) with two years (or less) on the clock for their presidency and then the VP got elected two more times.
Put another way, the maximum time someone can be president in the US is 10 years. No more than that and that requires some special circumstances. For most it will be eight years.
So if a president lost a VP while there was less than 2 years left on their term, could that president appoint a former 2-term president to the position of VP, such as Obama?
Presumably, if there was more than 2 years left, Obama would not be eligible to serve as VP.
There’s some dispute regarding how the 22nd Amendment interacts with the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amendment provides that, “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” But since the 22nd Amendment’s restrictions are on being “elected” president, some argue that a twice elected President could be elected or appointed VP and ascend upon the death or resignation of the President.
I am really guessing here but I think Obama would be able to serve as VP.
If the president died/stepped down and that would put Obama over the 10 year mark I would think the presidency would skip the VP and move to the Speaker of the House.
Or, Obama would serve as president until ten years and then be forced out and his VP would take over.
Not sure.
Presumably that would be the technicality that would allow a president to be re-elected indefinitely. Simply have his/her good buddy/pawns run as president while the wannabe runs as VP. Then the president resigns, allowing the former 10-year-president and current VP to assume the position a day after inauguration. It simply requires enough people voting (or state legislators) to produce a majority in the electoral college each time.
He won’t run in 2028 because why should he after going on National Television burning the Constitution, all while his supporters cheer.
There isn’t actually a ten year rule.
The 22nd Amendment has two different rules:
- By default, someone can be elected president twice.
- Someone who was president or acting president for more than two years in someone else’s term can only be elected once.
At no point does it actually place a hard cap on the number of years someone can be president. The supposed 10 year rule comes from people’s assumption that succession to the presidency only occurs once in someone’s political career, after which they would only become president again by election. But it’s entirely possible for such a president to become VP again; Gerald Ford was Ronald Reagan’s first choice of running mate in 1980, for example.
So if Barack Obama, George W. Bush, or Bill Clinton are eligible to be elected VP (a question which is, at best, disputed), then they can therefore become president for any length of time in that term, because there isn’t actually a time limit.
I think it’s unclear. The restriction is on being elected president. A person may only be elected twice, except that if a person has previously been president (or acting president) for more than two years, they may only be elected once.
The natural reading, to me, would be that there would be no prohibition on Obama serving as acting president (for any length of time); he just couldn’t subsequently be elected. But it’s certainly an open question.
(The two year provisions eliminates what could have been an interesting outcome – Cheney and Harris both served as acting president, although only for a period of hours each, but for the two year rule, it would be amusing if that limited them to one term).
Moderator Note
Keep the political jabs and commentary out of FQ, please. There are other forums for these types of comments.
There was some mild speculation some years back, but now that Trump has announced his run, I’d like to bring it back up:
Suppose someone sued to keep his name off the ballot in a state, based on his having won in 2016 and 2020. The 22nd amendment doesn’t say, " No person shall be elected to AND SERVE IN the office of the President more than twice". The bolded words aren’t there. As Trump says, he won the election in 2020 even though it was stolen from him. He is, according to the 22nd amendment, ineligible to run.
If it came to trial, of course a judge would rule against such a lawsuit: Trump didn’t win in 2020. But could such a lawsuit force him to respond to it? If the plaintiff and the defendant agreed that he won in 2020, how would a judge handle that?
Well, as a practical matter, it’s going to be hard to bring a suit challenging it. As we learned from the various challenges to John McCain’s constitutional eligibility (see, e.g. Robinson v. Bowen (N.D. Cal.) and Hollander v. McCain (D.N.H.)), it’s hard (and perhaps impossible) to establish standing to challenge a presidential candidates presence on the ballot on the basis of constitutional ineligibility. I suspect that any challenge would be responded to (and decided on) standing and jusiticiability issues (and, therefore, Trump would not be “forced” to respond to the argument).
If Trump is popular enough to win a third term, he’s probably popular enough to have the 22nd repealed or ignored. Alas, that would be the most democratic thing Trump ever accomplished.
Actually, I think Trump would be eligible to run. He just wouldn’t be eligible to serve.
It might at first glance seem ridiculous to talk of him running with no chance of serving, but that doesn’t quite rule it out.
The President is “elected” by the Electoral College. No matter what you think of the validity of the vote, there’s simply no way to contend that the EC elected him twice.
Even without the vagueness of whether a two-term President is eligible to be vice-president, there’s still no upper bound. Jane Doe is elected President, with John Roe as her vice-president. After two years and one day, Jane Doe dies, and John Roe serves out the remainder of her term. The next election, Roe says that he’s better suited for the job of VP than for President, and so he doesn’t run for the big office again, but serves as running mate for Richard Snow, who wins the election. But sadly, Snow dies after two years and one day, too, and so Roe serves out the remainder of his term. Lather, rinse, repeat, with John Roe serving just shy of two years of as many terms as he likes: He’s never elected President, and he never serves more than two years of the term someone else was elected to.
That’s very close to what Putin did with Medvedev. Putin got term limited out, put his stooge Medvedev in his office, waited a cycle, then was ‘re-elected.’
Putin also kept on changing the roles: When Putin was Prime Minister and Medvedev was President, the Prime Minister had all of the power. When Putin was President and Medvedev was Prime Minister, the President had all of the power.