“I heard someone saying that President Trump had a Republican in Congress working on writing up an amendment to change presidential term limits so he can serve longer. Have you heard that? And can he really do that?”
— Doris Warner, Mesa, Ariz.
Hi Doris,
You might be referring to Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican congressman who proposed a constitutional amendment allowing Trump to run for a third term. Ogles’ proposal would let Trump take the White House again but, for example, it wouldn’t let former Democratic President Barack Obama do so. That’s because Ogles crafted the proposal for presidents who didn’t serve two consecutive terms, as Obama did.
The most notable aspect of Ogles’ proposal is the fact that he framed his bid as one to amend the Constitution. This amounts to an admission that Trump can’t run again without a constitutional amendment, which is notoriously difficult to accomplish.
As it stands now, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says (in part): “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Trump has been elected twice. That should be the end of the story. And it probably is.
While we’re on the subject, I’ll note that the amendment refers to someone being “elected” president, which led one observer to hypothesize a scenario in which Vice President JD Vance wins the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, picks Trump as his VP and vows to resign if he wins, making Trump president a third time.
I’ll also note a recent judicial opinion that touched on the issue. It came in a lawsuit trying to keep Trump from office under the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban (a topic that the Supreme Court resolved in Trump’s favor last year, enabling his latest political victory). Part of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ reasoning in agreeing that the case should be dismissed is that it’s now moot, with the appellate panel writing this week that the 22nd Amendment “mandates that President Trump cannot be elected to another term after the current one.”
While it’s significant that a court said so, even in a case in which Trump’s future eligibility wasn’t directly at issue, the ruling prompted a concurring opinion from a Trump appointee who replaced now-Justice Neil Gorsuch on the appeals court. Judge Allison Eid agreed with her 10th Circuit colleagues on the bottom line that the case should be dismissed, but she found it unnecessary to discuss the 22nd Amendment to reach that conclusion.
“We should be reluctant to opine on a novel and complex constitutional question when doing so is not essential to resolve the case,” Eid wrote.
“Novel and complex”? Really?
It might be a “novel” issue in the sense that it hasn’t been resolved by the courts — because it hasn’t had to be resolved. All sorts of wild ideas might be said to be novel in that regard.
But is it “complex”?
Again, the Constitution says: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Nonetheless, the Trump appointee suggested an air of complexity to the matter. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Eid, who’s been floated as a Trump Supreme Court pick, would deem him eligible to run again if the issue were squarely presented. And her opinion didn’t lay out arguments explaining how he could be eligible.
But it’s a reminder that, even regarding the most clear-seeming issues, all bets are off when they reach our courts. Though all things considered, I’d probably take the bet that Trump can’t run again without an amendment passing — which, again, is unlikely to happen.
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