What is the 22nd Amendment

• Steven Topazio wrote this October 23, 2024 at 4:01 pm

The 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on February 27, 1951, limits the number of terms a person can serve as President to two. Its main provisions are:

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 someone else was elected shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. However, this provision does not apply to the person holding the office of President when the amendment was proposed by Congress.

Section 2: The amendment shall be inoperative unless it has 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 Congress.

The 22nd Amendment was enacted in response to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four-term presidency and aims to ensure that no individual can hold the office of President for more than two terms, promoting the rotation in office and preventing potential abuses of power.