Hacker News
points by jcranmer 4 days ago | 0 comments
> You got Trump and Biden as a direct result of term limits.

The US only enacted term limits in 1951. Before that time, only two presidents had attempted to seek third terms (another two attempted but failed to secure even a nomination by a political party), and only one was successful.

And, quite frankly, the only president since the 22nd amendment who I could see wanting to run for a third term is Trump, who does seem to be campaigning for one anyways despite being constitutionally barred from it.

[–] solyin 4 days ago
The writing is that no one can serve as president for longer than ten years, not that someone couldn't run a third term. A traditional reading means that you wouldn't seek a third term, but tradition'a been thrown out the window.
[–] jcranmer 4 days ago
In the interests of pedantry, that's not what the writing says. The operative text is quoted here:

> 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.

The 'obvious loophole' is that the text doesn't constrain the number of terms anyone can serve, but instead constrains the number of times someone can be elected as president, so if you run as vice president for someone who agrees to immediately resign to let you be president, you technically don't run afoul of the rule.

(The more likely loophole, following from Trump v Colorado, is that nobody is actually allowed to declare somebody ineligible for president, so the constitution's strictures are meaningless in practice. It truly is a disgusting SCOTUS decision.)

[–] NetMageSCW 3 days ago
The second part says you can only be elected once in that case, so you do “run afoul of the rule”.
[–] jcranmer 3 days ago
The argument would be that you were elected to the office of Vice President rather than the office of President.