This article will be available in Spanish ro El Tiempo Latino.

President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to office for a second term on January 20, 2025, recently reignited a constitutional debate over whether a twice-elected president can serve a third term.

“I guess I won’t run again unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we’ve got to figure something else out,'” Trump said House Republicans on November 13, perhaps in jest.

The the 22nd amendmentwhich was approved in 1951, states that “no person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice.” The amendment was spurred by President Franklin D. Rooseveltwho has been elected president an unprecedented four times, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a 2019 report.

The 22nd Amendment would block Trump, who at 78 is the oldest person to be elected president in US history since running for a third term – unless he was repealed, which is highly unlikely.

“I don’t think there is any realistic possibility that the 22nd Amendment will be repealed,” Kermit Roosevelta professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania and the great-great-grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, told us in an email. “It would take another amendment (like the 21st, repealing the 18th) and I don’t think it would get 2/3 of both houses of Congress, much less 3/4 of the states .”

to add an amendment to the Constitution, the House and Senate must pass a joint resolution by a two-thirds majority, and then 75% of the states must ratify the amendment. The 18th Amendment, which introduced Prohibition erait is the only amendment that ever existed repealed.

But, as CRS stated in a 2009 reportthere was a debate “as to whether the 22nd Amendment is an absolute limit on serving as president.” Although it is clear that a person cannot be chosen to a third term, if a twice-elected president can serve a third term as president or acting president is an unresolved constitutional issue, the CRS report said. (Emphasis ours.)

“(Legal) scholars Bruce Peabody and Scott Gant stated in a 1999 article that a former president could also pursue the presidency or be ‘acting president’ from a wide range of positions covered by the Act presidential succession,” CRS 2019. the report said. “In their reasoning, a former president serving as speaker of the House, president pro tempore of the Senate, or as a cabinet officer could also assume the office of president or act as president under the interpretation of “service vs. choice’ of the Twenty-second Amendment.”

Under Presidential Succession Lawthe vice president is the first of 18 people in line to replace a president who dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to hold office. The Speaker of the House is the second in line, and worth noting, the Republicans control retained of the Chamber after the 2024 elections. (Atu absent the idea of ​​becoming speaker of the House last year, when House Republicans were divided over who should replace ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.)

Peabody and Gant wrote article from 1999 for the Minnesota Law Review at a time when then-President Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second term. “It appears to be a common opinion that when Bill Clinton’s second term expires, he will be constitutionally barred from ever again becoming President of the United States. This, we believe, is categorically incorrect,” they wrote.

“Although there is a lot of debate on this subject, the language of the 22nd Amendment speaks only of limiting who will be chosen at the office of the President” (emphasis added),” Peabody, a professor of government and politics from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, told us in an email. “In my analysis, therefore, the 22nd Amendment does not prohibit a person from becoming or acting as president so long as that person is not elected to a third term as president.”

Peabody also told us in an email that a twice-elected president could run for vice president and serve as president if the president dies, resigns or is removed from office.

Peabody, email to FactCheck.org, November 15: There are actually five fairly clear scenarios in which a twice-elected president could become or act as president again:

Such a person could(:)

(1) serves as vice-president and then becomes president in case of impeachment, death or resignation of the president

(2) serves as Vice-President and then acts as President during a period when the President is unable to perform the duties and responsibilities of the Office, as authorized by (a) a written declaration of the President himself or (b) ) through the VP and a “ majority of either the principal directors of the executive departments’ or other authorized body indicating that the President is disabled/unable to perform the duties of office (Amendment 25)

(3) become vice president-elect and then president if “on the date set for the beginning of the president’s term, the president-elect will be deceased” (amendment 20)

(4) to become vice president-elect and then act as president if “a president has not been elected before the time fixed for the beginning (of) the term, or if the president-elect has failed to qualify” (20th Amendment) )

(5) act as president in circumstances provided for in the Succession Act 1947, which commences (when) both the president and the vice-president are unable to perform their duties;

Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said any attempt to circumvent the 22nd Amendment in these ways would be challenged in court. “I think the chances of this (being successful) are extremely low,” he said.

“Obviously, the concern that the 22nd Amendment addresses is that someone who serves more than two terms as president might amass too much power,” Roosevelt said. “That concern has nothing to do with how the person takes office the third (or fourth, or fifth) time.”

Why, then, does the 22nd Amendment say “to be elected” instead of “to serve”?

“The answer is probably that the only other way to become president is through the vice presidency, and they thought the 12th Amendment took care of that,” Roosevelt said.

The the 12th amendmentwhich was ratified in 1804, appears to disqualify a two-term president from being vice president. It extended qualifications for presidents, such as age and residency requirements, to the vice presidency. It also states that “no person constitutionally ineligible for the office of President shall be eligible for the office of Vice President of the United States.”

Peabody interprets the 12th Amendment more narrowly than Roosevelt.

“The most obvious interpretation of this provision is that it applies to the language of Article II which discusses eligibility: “No person, except a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible. to the president’s office; no person shall be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and has not been fourteen years a resident of the United States. Someone who is not a ‘natural born citizen’ or someone who is 34 years old cannot come in the ‘back door’ by being, say, vice president and then becoming president,” Peabody said.

“But in my opinion, these are the only ‘eligibility’ restrictions mentioned in the Constitution. And of course Mr. Trump meets the eligibility language of Article II,” he added. “Bottom line: A plausible reading of the Constitution is that Trump could serve out his second term and still become or act as president under one of the scenarios described above.”

The 2009 CRS report weighed both arguments and concluded: “It seems unlikely that this question will receive a conclusive answer, barring an actual occurrence of the still hypothetical situation.”

At least one Democrat wants to prevent such an event. Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said he would introduce a House resolution barring Trump from serving more than two terms. NBC News, which obtained a copy of the resolution, he wrote that it “reaffirms that the 22nd Amendment ‘applies to a total of two terms as President of the United States’ and reaffirms that it ‘applies to President-elect Trump.’

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations can be made through our “Donate” page.. If you prefer to send by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.