Repeal the 22nd Amendment

An Appeal for Repeal

of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, for preventing the rights of the people from lapsing into the custodianship of someone who might not respect those rights.

It's a melancholic thing to consider, so soon after another successful presidential election, that the 22nd Amendment prevents our presidents from being elected to more than two terms in office. This is a matter of some serious urgency, now, given the current laws and circumstances of our great country.

The 22nd Amendment codified into law the convention, established by George Washington and adhered to by 150 years of presidents, of limiting the president to a maximum of two four-year terms. After Franklin D Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms, the people were motivated to ensure that no one man would be allowed to stay in office for more than two terms.

Of course, FDR was president during extraordinary times in our nation's history. It would not have been prudent to oust him after just two terms, in 1940, with the nation in the early stages of a fragile economic recovery from the Great Depression and FDR promising to keep the United States out of World War II even as it exploded across Europe. By the time the election of 1944 rolled around, replacing FDR and his administration in the White House was unthinkable—we were at war in Europe and in the Pacific and the future of global civilization was hanging in the balance.

In the years after the Roosevelt administration, perhaps in part in reaction to the evidence—presented in stark relief by both allies and enemies of the United States in World War II—that a single unchecked individual with a tyrannical inclination could wield massive influence and power over entire continents, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment, and it was ratified by the necessary number of States in 1951.

The 22nd Amendment was the right thing for the country at the time it was proposed and ratified, but just as the Constitution is not written in stone, and must be amended and reinterpreted to keep pace with the changing times, so too must we revisit, modify, or do away with some of those changes as our society continues to evolve.

The terrorist attacks on the United States of America on the morning of September 11, 2001 brought about a paradigm shift in the scope and authority of the federal government, forever changing the way Americans think about and relate to the national state. 9/11, and the way we responded to it, effectuated legislation to reflect that new understanding and relationship. I believe the time has come to amend the Constitution to bring it more in line with our post-9/11 twenty-first century American reality.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act—the USA PATRIOT Act, for short—was signed into law by President George W Bush on October 26, 2001. The Act was designed to make it easier for the FBI and other police agencies in the US to surveil, charge, and convict people suspected of committing, or planning to commit, terrorism. In order to keep the vast majority of law-abiding citizens safe from the threat of terrorism, the Patriot Act necessarily plays a little fast and loose with the Bill of Rights, especially the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. Some critics have said that the Patriot Act, as applied by law enforcement agencies and the government, has infringed on some suspects' constitutional rights, mostly in terms of unreasonable searches and warrantless surveillance by the government.

Some of the Patriot Act's harshest initial critics, however, have come to see that the safety and security benefits that the Patriot Act has for the vast majority of citizens outweighs whatever harm it does in temporarily waiving the rights of terrorism suspects. President Obama, for example, a former constitutional law professor and one-time president of the Harvard Law Review, once opposed the Patriot Act on civil liberties grounds, but came to believe that the benefits of the Act outweighed the risks, and voted for its extension when he was in the Senate and also, as President, signed a four-year extension of the Act in 2011. Despite controversy that nothing had been done to limit the Act's more liberties-infringing provisions, President Obama recognized that no matter the consequences on the individual liberties of terrorism suspects, the Patriot Act was too valuable a tool for ensuring the safety and security of Americans to allow the law to expire.

The Military Commissions Act was passed in 2006 to provide a legislative framework for the anti-terrorism policies already being practiced by the Bush administration, the Department of Justice, and the government's various enforcement agencies. In order to keep Americans safe, it was necessary to keep the trials and charges of people that the Administration deemed “unlawful enemy combatant...