In many threads here on the Dope, the question of a possible Trump third term re: the 22nd Amendment had come to the question can he do an end around if he is not elected? For example, he is elected Vice-President and the winning President resigns as soon as the Secretary of State is confirmed. On that, we talk about the distinction of “serving as President” and “elected President” and we note the Senate deliberately changed “serve” to “elected” I do not think this will be the last word on that discussion; I merely offer this history of that Senate debate for information purposes.
I pulled this from the Congressional Record from 10 March 1947. The Committee on the Judiciary, which was the committee in charge of the proposed amendment, made a few changes that included changing the House version with served to reading elected. Senator Magnuson offered the amendment in question on behalf of the committee. He twice stated in debate that he viewed this as a “perfecting amendment” (to the motion) so that states would better understand what they were voting on for ratification. Sen. Hatch would later agree to this assessment that using “elected” clarified the proposed constitutional amendment.
Magnuson’s focus in starting debate regarded the current (at the time) situation where a Vice-President took on the office of President through the President’s death. There was still a question of, despite John Tyler’s precedent, of if a VP that ascended to the presidency was in fact the President or just an Acting President. Remember that was not settled until 20 years later with the 25th Amendment. By changing “serve” to “elected” it sidesteps this (at the time) open legal question.
Also imagine this scenario Sen. Magnuson presented to the Senate. A Vice-President takes over as President with one year + one day left in the term. Since this counts as a term in its own right, if the language remained as “served” they could only be President for 5 years. (Note needed here: the language of the bill at the time had any VP ascending to the Presidency for 365 or more days as serving a term. In today’s world, read one year/365 days as more than two years) In fact, Sen. Tydings thought that this was too restrictive and that any counting of the ascended-to presidency should not count, a sentiment echoed by Sen. Hatch later in debate. They believed that if the goal were to limit a person to two elected presidency then that was it - you can be elected twice no matter how long you served as VP turned President. If the President dies the day after inauguration then someone could serve 12 years minus a day. This was echoed by Sen. Kilgore in that the amendment discriminated against the VP turned President in that if they served more than one year as President, they were barred from two full terms.
In addition, Sen. McClellan stated that a Vice-President that ascended to the Presidency may feel an obligation to continue the policies of their predecessor (in effect be an Acting-President) and be unfairly barred (as Magnuson points out) from having two terms of their own as a result.
Not all of the senators felt the same. Sen Hickenlooper had a problem with the fact that the only way to serve more than two terms (8 years) was to not be elected President then take on that office through misfortune. Sen. Tydings later mischaracterized Hickenlooper’s point but in doing so pointed out that if a person served as President for 364 days they could get 2 more elected terms but if they took over before a “week-end trip” and served 366 days they could only get 1 elected term. He would later drag in the idea that it being a leap year could change the eligibility from two to one elected term.
Sen. Taft pointed out that presidential terms have ended early due to death, so 5 years was sufficient and the possibility of 11.5 years was way too long. Tydings countered that there could be a middle ground. Interestingly, Taft raised in his argument the idea of the VP-turned_President being elected to one additional 6-year term and Tydings mentioned 7 years total as being acceptable and Taft agreed that 3+4=7 years should be considered as two terms. Magnuson tries to take control of the debate by by saying that they are debating extreme and that a “happy medium” could be found. Completely my own theory but I think that this part of the debate is what led to the next day changing the one-year definition of term to more-than-two-years thus limiting a person to no more than 10 years minus a day as President.
Perhaps the most interesting idea was given by Sen. Myers who thought that the limitation should be on the political parties and not individuals. Sen. Wiley goes on some sort of speech about founding fathers and non-partisanship in committee debate (nothing of substance) and tries to close debate. The Dems object and state their caucus wished to debate further and so the Senate went into recess until 12 March 1947. In the negotiations over those two days, the one-year definition of a term became more than two years and “elected” was left in. Sen. Holland felt there should be no limitations and and he originally suggests that it be no more than two successive terms - an idea that was inserted in the motion amendment and if passed the constitutional amendment would read
No person shall be eligible to be elected to the office of President for more than two successive terms.
Sen. Revercomb proceeds to say that they are missing the point of the constitutional amendment - that is limit how long a person can be president and that 12 year - 1 day / skip a term / 8 more years / skip a term / 8 more years / lather, rinse, repeat is not the solution.
OK: I did not want this to be a Trump thread but the speeches given by Sen. Kilgore & Sen. Lucas regarding the motion under discussion should we trust we will or will not have dictatorships and maybe the American people feel, given the circumstances, we need a dictatorship is well worth the reading for our look at 2028. I do ask we do not bring that discussion to this thread. If you want to read it (and everyone should), pull up the 12 March 1947 Congressional Record - Senate and search for “Mr. President, I have just submitted, without reading in toto”
And now back to our story.
Some discussion was had on the constitutional amendment being sent to the state legislature and not conventions for ratification. Eventually the proposed motion amendment was voted on and defeated. As Magnuson advocated for the non-successive wording, Sen. Taft proposed the amendment without that wording.
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 2 years of a term to which some other person was elected President, shall be elected to the office of 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.
Of note: this was the wording Taft work on as a compromise from the factions two days prior. This amendment passed. There was more discussion on the constitutional amendment of course, but for the purposes of this thread, we are done. There we have it Dopers. How and why the Senate changed “serve” into “elected”. I hope this helped.