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What Is the Third Term Project? Pro-Trump Group Bids to Change Constitution (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 1 week ago by jarfil to c/politics

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A Republican group is hoping to rally support to change the Constitution to allow President Donald Trump to seek a third term.

The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1951 following the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms between 1933 and 1945. The two-term limit for presidents was introduced by Congress to prevent potential abuses of power.

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[–] t3rmit3 13 points 1 week ago

I am skeptical this is about Trump or 3rd terms at all, apart from creating the veneer of legality their base uses to continue their calculated disregard for the harm they are doing. They know that an Amendment is impossible to pass via congress in this climate, so I wonder if this is just a vehicle to re-interpret the requirements for a ConCon (Article V Constitutional Convention) amendment.

For a little background, Article V of the Constitution stipulates that Amendments can only be passed by 2 methods:

2/3 votes in both the House and Senate
3/4 votes by State Legislatures, in a Convention to be initiated by 2/3 of State Legislatures

This has been attempted not infrequently, but has never successfully happened. All 27 Amendments have been passed through Congress, and a ConCon has never been called since the first one (when the Constitution was initially ratified). It's a particularly fancied route by Conservatives, because 1) Red state legislatures tend to be more 'radical' conservatives then their respective congresspersons, and 2) there are no fixed limits on what can happen in a ConCon: you could call one for any stated purpose, and then just decide to propose whatever the hell you want when you're there.

Article V is also very short, being one single sentence. This is the entirety of the text:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Given our current SCOTUS and Trump and his ilk, I would be worried that they will try to "re-interpret"

when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States

to mean 3/4 of the states present at the ConCon. In a scenario where 34 states (2/3) hold one and exclude others from taking part, this could lower the number of states required to ratify a new Amendment from 38 to 26, putting Amendments squarely within reach of Trump's 2024 bloc of 27 states. At that point, they could literally "amend" in anything and everything.