Should Presidents Be Allowed To Serve More Than Two Terms?
Posted on October 8, 2006
Here is some food for thought on a Sunday. It seems to have some bi-partisan support. I am not sure what to think of it right now. I would love to get some feedback on it.
Via WND
One thing is certain about the 2008 presidential election campaign that begins in one year: It won’t involve George W. Bush as a candidate.
But bipartisan legislation to repeal the 22nd Amendment restriction of two terms for U.S. presidents could change that certainty for future presidents.
Two of the most passionate congressional advocates of such a move – Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-MD, and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-WI – have teamed up to sponsor a resolution that would represent the first step toward that change in the U.S. political system.
“The time has come to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, and not because of partisan politics,” explained Hoyer. “While I am not a supporter of the current President, I feel there are good public policy reasons for a repeal of this amendment. Under the Constitution as altered by the 22nd Amendment, this must be President George W. Bush’s last term even if the American people should want him to continue in office. This is an undemocratic result.”
Until President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term during World War II, there was no such restriction in American law. A tradition of presidents serving two terms only began with George Washington.
“We do not have to rely on rigid constitutional standards to hold our Presidents accountable,” said Hoyer. “Sufficient power resides in the Congress and the Judiciary to protect our country from tyranny.”
Hoyer argues the 22nd Amendment “has the effect of removing the president from the accountability to political forces that come to bear during regular elections every four years.”
Rep. Howard Berman, D-CA, is another advocate of the move.
“I don’t like arbitrary term limits,” he said. “I think our country was better off because Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to run for a fourth term. Imposing an arbitrary limit makes no sense.”
Should the resolution pass and be approved by the states, the repeal would not go into effect until after the Bush presidency, making him ineligible for multiple consecutive terms.
Read the rest and share your thoughts in the comments.
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25 Responses to “Should Presidents Be Allowed To Serve More Than Two Terms?”
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This idea makes me queasy. His points on accountability and arbitrary limits are valid, but this idea still scares me.
Scale back the size and power of the federal government (and its executive) and then we can talk about loosening the reigns a bit.
I think Congress should concern themselves more with creating term limits for themselves than with repealing the term limit for presidents.
That is a foolish idea as the President is in charge of writing treaties and appointing federal judges. We have not recovered from the judiciary tyranny that resulted, when 9 Justices all appointed by the Democrat party, sat on the bench at one time. Secular Atheism was established as the religion of the United States and the attacks on Christianity began. The federal courts are bad enough with a two party system in control, they are even a bigger disaster with one party.
How many times do Americans vote a sitting Senator out? Kennedy and others are fossils who have sat in Congress for decades. We might as well elect a dictator for there will be little difference in the long run.
I’ve never been a fan of term limits at any level of government. While it may allow some people to remain in office longer than they should, it also keeps us from retaining the right people when we need them. FDR is the main reason we have term limits on the president but look where we were in 1940 near the end of his third term and in 1944 near the end of his
thirdfourth<[edited]. How would WWII have turned out had Wendell Willkie defeated James Farley in 1940?The biggest problem we face in politics is the dominance of lobbyists. When so much of Washington is based on influence and seniority, I can imagine how difficult it is for a green congressman to make any headway. You almost have to keep sending the same people back over and over if you want them to have any real affect. Until we can enact real reform to limit the influence of outsiders on our representatives, term limits may be the lesser of two evils.
And for another rare time…I agree with camanintx again.
I think the Judical branch of the government is the most needy and deserving of reform. I don’t know if elections for justice positions are the answer, but I can’t believe it would be worse than it is now.
Supreme Court justices are APPOINTED by the President and approved by Congress, so they don’t have to feel any real responsibility and accountability to the American people. They will most likely outlast the President and Congressionals who placed them in their position, so again no responsibility, no accountability.
They’re appointed FOR LIFE, so they can’t be “voted out” even if the American people disapprove of the performance of their duties. The only way to forcibly remove a justice is through impeachment proceedings, which can be denied by partisan politics and can neglect to reflect the will of the people. That isn’t democracy.
I think the problems regarding their authority, and the abuse thereof, are obvious from a glancing look at the Supreme Court’s history. They have used stare decisis (setting of precedent) to choke out the will of the people time and time again. If there’s a branch of government that needs to be restrained, it’s the Judicial Branch.
Regarding presidential term limits, however, I have mixed feelings. If it were possible to have GW Bush in office for a third term it would be great for America’s security, but the thought of having Clinton holding a third term when 9/11 occurred just makes me shudder.
Lone Star,
I need to get some sleep, so I’m going to be blunt.
The founders set it up that way for specifically those reasons. They wanted one of the three branches to have the freedom to ignore the will of the people when they deem the people to be wrong. Yes, hundreds of millions can be wrong, especially on matters of law.
Even the worst federal judge is far more qualified than the vast majority of us. I suggest you read some of the opinions that trouble you. I bet you will find that even while you may disagree with their conclusion, the opinions are always arrived at with a methodical step by step progression of logic and law.
I bet you will find that even while you may disagree with their conclusion, the opinions are always arrived at with a methodical step by step progression of logic and law.
JM,
I know you can’t see or hear me laughing, but…trust me.
Google David Letterman Colleen Nestler.
A Santa Fe, New Mexico family court judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) against TV talk show host David Letterman to protect a woman he had never met, never heard of, and lived 2,000 miles away from. Colleen Nestler claimed that Letterman had caused her “mental cruelty” and “sleep deprivation” for over a decade by using code words and gestures during his network TV broadcasts.
[snip]
That ridiculous TRO was dismissed last December.
[snip]
The New Mexico statute appears to limit domestic violence to “any incident by a household member,” and Letterman, who lives in Connecticut and works in New York, had never been in Ms. Nestler’s household. But New Mexico law defines household member to include “a person with whom the petitioner has had a continuing personal relationship,” and Ms. Nestler’s charge that Letterman’s broadcast of television messages for eleven years qualified as a “continuing” relationship and thereby turned him into a “household member.”
___________________________________
Lawrence v. Texas
Were the Judge’s opinions based on the constitution or international law?
Cite precedent.
___________________________________
The founders set it up that way for specifically those reasons. They wanted one of the three branches to have the freedom to ignore the will of the people when they deem the people to be wrong.
The success of the appointed system was further enhanced by the fact that the judiciary did not view itself as a super-legislature; policy-making was anathema to that branch, and it was extremely unusual for the judiciary to strike down any act of the legislature. As a supreme court explained in 1838:
The Court, therefore, from its respect for the Legislature - the immediate representation of that sovereign power [the people] whose will created and can at pleasure change the Constitution itself - will ever strive to sustain and not annul its [the Legislature's] expressed determination. . . . [A]nd whenever the people become dissatisfied with its operation, they have only to will its abrogation or modification and let their voice be heard through the legitimate channel, and it will be done. But until they wish it, let no branch of the government - and least of all the Judiciary - undertake to interfere with it.
Most judges today no longer embrace this view. Consequently, State policies on issues from education to criminal justice, from religious expressions to moral legislation, from financing to health now stem more frequently from judicial decisions than legislative acts. In fact, in recent years, even the federal court has described itself as “a super board of education for every school district in the nation,” “a national theology board,” and amateur psychologists on a “psycho-journey.” Judges now endorse the declaration of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo that:
I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
As a result, there are now two constitutions for most states: the ratified constitution with its explicitly written language, and the unratified living constitution that evolves from decision to decision (or, as explained by Supreme Court Chief-Justice Charles Evans Hughes: “We are under a Constitution - but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.” And unfortunately, just as there are now two constitutions, there are also now two public policy-making bodies: the elected legislature and the appointed judiciary.
With two such radically different constitutions and distinctively different public policy bodies, citizens should have the choice of the constitution and public policies under which they must live. Otherwise (as Samuel Adams wisely observed):
[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to [policies] to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.
I said federal judge. I don’t dispute that this particular judgement was ludicrous, but a state family court is not on par with a federal court. Even granting that, everyone is guilty of making mistakes from time to time. That’s why there’s a well defined appeals process.
RE: the rest of your post, it is not disputed that the judicial branch plays a far greater role in our country than it used to. However, nothing in your post addresses the “why?”.
I don’t wish to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me like you simply ascribe it to power-hungry judges. While this is certainly a possibility, it is by no means the only one.
Our code of laws is many orders of magnitude bigger than it used to be. It’s not far fetched to suggest that there are many conflicts, discrepancies, and ambiguity. These require interpretation.
It could also be that the ever-growing executive branches push the envelope more than they used to.
I would contend that there are three. The executive branch does its fair share of interpretation as well.
Jeff Molby,
“Even the worst federal judge is far more qualified than the vast majority of us. “
There is evidence the founding fathers never intended them to have judicial review and it is only a power they took on themselves Thomas Jefferson sure thought so.
You are full of it.. Dred Scott v. Sanford caused the American Civil War. You are no different than those who supported King George and other dictators. Their decision of separate but equal led to segregation. Their decision in Buck v. Bell led to forced sterilization. Their decision in Roe v. Wade led to over a million children being killed each year through legalized abortion. If we had the sense God gave us, we would rebel against them and institute a new judicial branch that is better able to secure our happiness and security.
The President appoints judges so the judges are hardly superior to the executive branch in quality. That was an absurd argument.
The President is an elected official which mean in 4 or at most 8 years he will no longer be in office. This is not true with federal judges.
As for logic. They do not care about logic. In Roe v. Wade the deciding Justices used what basically sums up as follows because unborn children are not treated equally under the law they are not persons in every way and because they are not persons in every way they are not entitled to be treated equally under the law. It is called circular logic and it is a fallacy. Like Saddam and Hitler their word is law even if it send the innocent to death.
I’d be interested to hear more.
“Quality” by what measure? They are distinctly different jobs that require distinctly different skills.
Interesting summation. I’m curious though. If it’s that simple, why has it stood for decades?
An ad hominem attack is a fallacy too.
Are you asserting that judges are war criminals?
I said federal judge. I don’t dispute that this particular judgement was ludicrous, but a state family court is not on par with a federal court.
You refered to the “three branches”
All judges are part of the judicial branch.
However, nothing in your post addresses the “why?”.
Sure it does! read it again, starting with… “The success of the appointed system” and ending with… “they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.”
“Our code of laws is many orders of magnitude bigger than it used to be.”
An indication of a crumbling society is the increase of laws to control it.
I don’t wish to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me like you simply ascribe it to power-hungry judges.
If you can’t see what our judicial branch have done to our constitution, the equal powers and the will of the people… you are looking for ideological support and not the truth.
The executive branch does its fair share of interpretation as well.
As is it’s constitutional right and obligation.
Roe v. Wade
Interesting summation. I’m curious though. If it’s that simple, why has it stood for decades?
Because Congress didn’t exercise their constitutional power to impeach them, for a decision lacking ANY precedent, or constitutional basis.
You’re right; I made conflicting references. I withdraw the reference to “three branches” as many judges are not appointed at all, let alone for life.
As requested, I read it again. I stand by my original assessment that your post characterizes the way things were and the way things are now. However, even if I accept your characterizations as accurate, I don’t believe you have demonstrated any causation.
I agree.
While I am in no way happy with the state of our government, I am not convinced that the cause of our current situation is as simple as you believe.
That’s unfortunate. We should start electing reps that have backbones.
I also should have mentioned that I don’t expect you to. A proper analysis of the subject matter would certainly take several volumes of text. If you have any books to suggest, I will attempt to read them.
Other than that, I think this conversation has reached its end. I admit that your belief is reasonable; It is certainly one of the possibilities. I hope that you can step back for a minute and acknowledge that there are other possibilities as well. In fact, the truth is most likely a combination of all the possibilities.
I have not got the space or time for all the answers you want so I will summarize. Thomas Jefferson used the argument that the federal judiciary was never intended to have the power of judicial review after the case of Marbury v. Madison. Here are some of his quotes about it.
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1030.htm
Abraham Lincoln used the Dred Scott v. Sanford case as a springboard into the presidency which did not make the Southerners happy to say the least.
http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/dred.htm
If the President is incompetent in his job then his choices for federal judges will also be incompetent. As it is they are political appointees which mean they may be appointed in exchange for favors or other reasons that dominate politics.
Roe v. Wade stands because of politics which is why pro choice and pro life factions try to influence judicial appointments.
An ad hominem uses the personal attack as a premise which is not what I did. I compared the judges to Saddam and Hitler because no one exists to keep them in check. Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson both call the Supreme Court Justices of their time tyrants or something to that effect. The truth is not defamatory.
Federal Judges that back legalized abortion are guilty of aiding and abetting genocide which is a human rights crime.
I’ll try to read your links later in the day.
Then I’m confused as to how you suppose introducing more politics would change things.
Your statements are inconsistent. Even if your assertions are taken as fact, you have only demonstrated that “some” federal judges are incompetent.
This is the adhominem attack I was referring to. Even if you demonstrated that they have no capacity for logic, surely you can’t presume to know their cares.
Sorry. I’m going to have to disagree with that leap. Stick to calling it murder. At least then, you only have to prove that an embryo is a human being.
I have no need to prove an embryo is a human being because biologists have already done that, and anyone who denies it is acting like a fanatic or a fool. It is especially silly when they are the same people who cleave to the theory of evolution. You can always try to prove biologists wrong, but you should have some reasonable basis why you believe they are wrong.
Genocide is just murder on a mass scale and so 1.2 million humans killed each year qualifies as genocide.
You are correct about the way I stated “they do not care about logic,” as I should have included the possibility that they also might be incompetent or careless.
I didn’t mean to imply that I disagreed. I was simply trying to point out that the burden of proof for “murder” was far easier to meet than “genocide”.
Incorrect. The definition is much stricter than that. It is “[t]he systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.”
Incorrect. The definition is much stricter than that. It is “[t]he systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.”
Abortion has been numbered among the liberal causes of modern politics. Abortion is identified with women’s rights just as the Civil Rights Movement was identified with equal rights for African Americans and other minorities. But is abortion really a liberal cause? A careful examination of the history of the abortion rights movement would shock even the most ardent defender of a woman’s right to choose. The founders of the movement were in fact racists who despised the poor and who were searching for a way to prevent colored races from reproducing. Rather than defending the rights of the poorest of the poor, which is the tradition of liberalism, the founders advocated abortion as a means of eliminating the poor; especially Blacks, Jews, Slavs, and Italians. And rather than desiring to help the poor through welfare programs, they wanted to eliminate all charities and government aid. Today, most liberals would be shocked to know of this racist heritage. Not only is the founding of the abortion rights movement anti-liberal, but it may have been an attempt to promote racial genocide.
The modern day abortion rights movement began as the American Birth Control League in 1921. Among its founding board members were Margaret Sanger, Lothrup Stoddard, and C. C. Little. The latter two people were known for their racist views, but Margaret Sanger continually shows up in the company of other racists. In fact, she was the guest speaker at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Silverlake, N. J. in 1926.[1] Not only did she not disassociate herself from these racist views, her own writings leave little doubt as to her sympathies. In implementing a plan called the “Negro Project,” that was designed to sterilize Blacks and reduce the number of Black children being born in the south, Sanger wrote:
“[We propose to] hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” [2]
# 1) Emily Taft Douglas, Margaret Sanger; Pioneer of the Future, Holt, Rinehart &#38; Winston, N.Y., 1970, p. 192.
# 2) Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Oct. 19,1939. - Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~rauch/abortion_eugenics/peterson.html
Abortion is genocide, infanticide and murder.
Margaret Sanger was also a founding member of the ACLU.
lobo,
Even if racist statements made in a society that had institutionalized racism had any bearing on today’s beliefs, you would have an extremely hard time demonstrating that words “systematic” and “entire” considering that the “plan” would require a grotesquely negative replacement rate and then the last women of said race[s] would literally have to follow suit knowing that they are the last of the line.
Jeff Molby,
If you go down you will come across the international law definition.
“(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
According to the statistics of my Democrat House candidate 2/3rds of those receiving legalized abortions do it for financial reasons. If this is true and not spin then the poor class is being targeted using marketing as a form of coercion.
1. “The poor class” does not qualify as “a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”
2. “killing”, “causing”, “inflicting”, “imposing. These are all verbs that require deliberate action from the accused. At most, abortion gives people the option of doing those things to themselves.
That is a legal technicality.
Blacks and Hispanics are and according to Blackgenocide.org Planned Parenthood, located most of their abortion centers in Black neighborhoods. I have heard of ads targeting both of those groups and not ads targeting whites. My sample size is too small, but it would be interesting to see who Planned Parenthood tends to market to. They were allies of the Eugenics Movement.
http://www.blackgenocide.org/planned.html
Doctors kill children still in their mother’s wombs. The mothers just betray their own children by aiding and abetting them. The judges also aided and abetted them by striking down laws that prevented the genocide.