The politically paranoid are jazzed up by the belated realization that a bill to repeal the 22nd amendment to the United States Constitution and thus eliminate the bar to more than two presidential terms is not making the nightly news. Perhaps that’s because the bill, H.R. 5, introduced by Rep. Jose Serrano (D- N.Y.) in January hardly qualifies as news. It’s just one more bill stuck in committee and unlikely to ever see the light of day. But that doesn’t stop the anti-Obama forces from getting jazzed and creating the spectre of King Obama.
Repealing the 22nd Amendment Would be a Tedious Process
Mere passage by both Houses of Congress and approval by the President would not make such a bill law. To repeal a Constitutional amendment, two-thirds of the state legislatures in the United States have to ratify it.
History of the 22nd Amendment
The 22nd amendment was passed on March 21, 1947 and ratified three and one half years later on February 27, 1951 in the wake of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s unprecedented election to 4 terms. Prior to the FDR presidency, no president served more than two terms and the 22nd amendment has precluded third and subsequent presidential terms since 1951.
22nd Amendment Repeal Effort: Who’s Behind It?
Anti-Obama forces are out in droves contending that the effort to repeal the 22nd amendment is the brainchild of the Obama supporters who seek to keep him in office for life. Missing from this conspiracy analysis are some simple facts:
Obama opposes repeal of the 22nd amendment. Obama spokesperson Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama is firmly in support of the amendment which limits him to two terms in office.
Moreover, efforts to repeal the 22nd amendment are nothing new. They crop up periodically, introduced by Congressmen who oppose the amendment on philosophical grounds. In 2006, Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) introduced a bill proposing to repeal the 22nd amendment that failed to pass. Several other efforts to repeal the 22nd amendment have been introduced to no avail during the last 6 sessions of Congress, including one by Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) as far back as 1989 when few people had ever heard the name Barack Hussein Obama.
The chances of a 22nd amendment repeal not only passing but achieving ratification during the Obama presidency? This outcome is highly unlikely given that prior similar bills never even made it out of committee.
For the truly paranoid who think that Serrano is an Obama puppet, note that Serrano first introduced legislation to repeal the 22nd amendment in 1997 when Bill Clinton was president, and when that legislation failed, he introduced it again in 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007, according to Factcheck.org as reported on National Public Radio.
