Americans who love their country should root for this proposal to advance as far as possible.
After all, it has no chance of immediate ratification, but it raises critical questions and makes us contemplate glorious possibilities.
According to Just the News, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has introduced a joint resolution that he hopes will lead to a repeal of the Twenty-Second Amendment, which would then allow President Donald Trump to seek a third term in the 2028 election.
“It’s a unique time in history when you have someone who was elected president, then didn’t win re-election, and then the American people said, ‘Oh crap, we messed up. We want President Trump,’” Ogles said.
The Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, allows presidents to serve only two terms: “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.”
At first glance, of course, this effort seems like pie in the sky.
Then again, in the darkest days of 2020 and 2021, who could have dreamed that Trump would not only return to the White House but that he would unleash the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his team of young geniuses at the Department of Government Efficiency to shut down sinister federal agencies, like the United States Agency for International Development, while bringing attention to the myriad and likely criminal ways in which federal bureaucrats have enriched themselves?
In other words, never say never.
With that in mind, let us contemplate the pros and cons of Ogles’ joint resolution.
Should Trump be allowed a third term?
First, on the “cons” side of the ledger, the resolution has no chance of ratification at present. After all, it would require the approval of 38 states.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Republicans currently control 28 of the 50 legislatures. Democrats control 18 of those legislatures, while three qualify as “divided” (the analysis does not include unicameral Nebraska). The GOP does hold an impressive 4,078-3,210 edge in total state legislators nationwide. But those numbers do not approach the three-fourths threshold required for a constitutional amendment.
Second, Trump himself probably would have no interest in seeking a third term. On June 14, 2028, he will turn 82. That alone, of course, would not disqualify him, but would he really want to embark on a fourth presidential campaign?
Third, Republicans should want term limits imposed on Congress. Removing those limits on the president, therefore, would make it difficult to argue for those same limits on federal legislators.
The “pros” side of the ledger, however, looks at least as persuasive as the “cons.”
For one thing, the American republic thrived under the Constitution for more than 160 years before the Twenty-Second Amendment. President George Washington voluntarily relinquished power after two terms, and every subsequent two-term president followed his example.
In 1940, however, having failed to rescue the United States from the Great Depression (the national unemployment rate still stood at 19 percent in 1938, six years after he first won election), President Franklin Roosevelt nonetheless decided that he was the indispensable man, so he broke with the Washingtonian tradition, sought and won two additional terms before dying in office in 1945.
The states then adopted the Twenty-Second Amendment in response to Roosevelt’s lengthy administration.
Second, one must concede that American voters chose Roosevelt four times. That sounds like democracy, does it not? Why should voters have had the option to choose Roosevelt in 1940 but not Trump in 2028?
Third, a push to repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment would highlight the absurdity of term limits on presidents but not legislators. Again, we want term limits on Congress.
Finally — and this constitutes more of a practical consideration than a principled one — getting Ogles’ resolution into the proverbial pipeline now, when it has no chance of success, would speed up the process in 2027, when — if things go as planned — it would actually stand a reasonable chance of ratification.
Keep in mind that we need state legislatures if we hope to amend the Constitution. If Trump succeeds for the next two years, and if Republicans overwhelm Democrats at the polls in the 2026 midterms, then we could see massive majorities at the state level, where the GOP, in terms of total number of legislators, already holds a substantial advantage.
In short, Ogles’ proposal has no chance of immediate success. But that does not mean Republicans should shy away from stashing it on the back burner. One never knows what the next two years might bring.
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