Trump can serve a third term legally, since 22A only limits "be elected" not "serve"
David Hume:
"Section 1. 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. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.“
If Trump wins in 2024, he can be the VP nominee in 2028, and make the President resign. Or, it this looks too bad, he can request to be elected as speaker, and make both the President resign. He can repeat this plot indefinitely until his death.
There is no legal barrier against it. We should have an amendment to change "be elected" to "serve".
H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY:
You have to be eligible for the presidency to be the Vice President. The exact interpretation of the 22nd and 25th amendments is disputed, but the idea that a former two-term president would be ineligible to be Vice President seems like the more natural reading of both of them together.
David Hume:
Quote from: H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY on February 15, 2024, 07:02:17 AM
You have to be eligible for the presidency to be the Vice President. The exact interpretation of the 22nd and 25th amendments is disputed, but the idea that a former two-term president would be ineligible to be Vice President seems like the more natural reading of both of them together.
Then use the speaker method.
Arizona Iced Tea:
You are right by technicality, but I feel like this would go to SCOTUS and they would rule against Trump because that wouldn't be within the "spirit" of the amendment because the loophole is based off the interpretation of only a few words.
MarkD:
Please don't be highly literal when interpreting laws, including provisions within the US Constitution. It isn't wise to assume that lawmakers always mean exactly what they say, nothing more and nothing less. Judge Learned Hand addressed that in his essay/speech "How Far Is a Judge Free in Rendering a Decision?" (Also printed in his book "The Spirit of Liberty.") The only merit behind the idea of reading every law literally is that it would ensure that judges are indeed merely interpreting law and not usurping the power of lawmaking. Interpreting a set of words that make up a law should include using your intuition about what the lawmakers intended. So in the case of the 22nd Amendment (which I wish we would repeal), my intuition is not that they only meant the word "elected" in the literal sense of winning two elections, but they also meant to prevent anyone from serving more than two terms (ten years max).
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