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What are term limits
and why were they started?
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The top government office of the United States is the presidency.You
probably already know that we elect a president every four years.This
four-year period is called a term.Term limits refers to the total number of
terms a president is allowed to serve, which by law is two four-year terms,
or eight years total. Sometimes the current president is reelected after the
first term, like President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, while
at other times, the president isn’t reelected, like President Bush’s father,
George H.W. Bush, and serves only one term. But what if presidents could
run for office and be reelected as many times as we, the people, thought
they deserved? Do you think that would be a good thing or a bad thing?
Most people would probably answer that it would depend on whether or
not they liked the president who was in office at the time. But what about
what’s best for our country as a whole? Should a president be allowed to
serve for more than eight years?
The signing of the United States Constitution
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The length of time a president can serve is such an important issue that
it’s discussed in our Constitution, which is the supreme law of our country.
Written by our Founding Fathers, the Constitution of the United States
clearly outlines the term limits of each major government office. While
the president can be elected to serve up to eight years total, members of
the House of Representatives and the Senate can serve for much longer.
People are elected to the House for two-year terms and to the Senate for
six-year terms, but there’s no limit to the number of terms they may serve.
This means that members of Congress can stay in office longer than the
president! It’s possible that they could be reelected enough times to serve
for the rest of their lives.The only officials who serve for life without
having to be elected are the justices of the Supreme Court, the highest
court in the country, and they are appointed by the president (with
consent of the Senate), not elected by the people.The reason these justices
are allowed to serve for life is so that their decisions won’t be affected by
politics.They are expected to make decisions based on their interpretation
of the Constitution and the aims of the Founding Fathers, not what they
think will please the president who appointed them.
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But the presidency is a different story. Should our president be able to
serve longer than eight years? Or are we better off keeping things the way
they are? First, let’s look at how term limits
came about.
George Washington, our very first
president, started it all. In 1796, after
serving two terms, President
Washington published a farewell
address and did not seek
reelection. At the time there
no law in place stating he had
step down, but Washington
he wanted to resume life
as a private citizen and that
increasing age made it difficult
him to lead the country.This set a
or an example, for the future.
was
to
said
his
for
precedent,
George Washington
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It was our third president,Thomas Jefferson, who recommended a
two-term limit for the presidency. Jefferson feared that without limits, a
president might be able to stay in office for life, and he thought this was
too similar to the monarchy in England, where a king or queen remained
in power for life. Because the United States had only recently won
independence from England, President Jefferson thought that the new
country’s government should be very different from England’s.To achieve
this, he argued that the president of the United States of America shouldn’t
remain in power for too long.
One problem with power is that it can change a person.Those in
positions of power may start to care more about how important they are
rather than what they need to do to help the people they are supposed
to serve. President Jefferson thought that if leaders knew they had only
a short time in which to make their mark, they would work harder to
accomplish as much as possible during their limited time in office.The idea
was that frequent presidential elections would keep those in power on
their best behavior.
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However, despite Jefferson’s
suggestion, nothing was done at the
time about limiting the president’s
time in office. It didn’t really matter,
though, because few presidents after
Jefferson tried to serve for more
than two terms, even though no law
prevented it. One president who did
try was Ulysses S. Grant, our eighteenth
president. Grant was elected president
in 1868, and when his second term
was almost up, he tried but failed to
get the Republican party to support
him and nominate him for a third term.
It wasn’t until 1940, when Democrat
Franklin Roosevelt was in office, that
things finally changed.
Ulysses S. Grant
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During WW II, many Americans wanted
to keep President Roosevelt in office.
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World War II was raging in Europe, and because United States citizens
didn’t like the idea of switching presidents in the middle of such disorder
abroad, President Roosevelt was elected for a third term.Then, in 1944,
he won yet another term—his fourth. President Roosevelt died the next
year, but if he had lived, who knows how long he might have continued
to serve as president? The fact that Roosevelt, if he hadn’t died, might
have continued to be reelected for years to come caused concern. People
worried that in the future a president would get reelected again and
again, end up with too much power, and do harm to the nation.The issue
became important enough after Roosevelt’s death for Congress to propose
an amendment, or addition, to the Constitution. Called the Twenty-Second
Amendment, this amendment states that a president cannot be elected
for more than two four-year terms. Congress voted on and passed the
amendment in 1947. It became law in 1951 after being approved by
the states.
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In recent years, however, there
has been talk about changing
presidential term limits. Former
President Bill Clinton favors
changing the amendment. He feels
that former presidents should be
allowed to run for office again, but
only after some time has passed
following the first two terms. He
believes that there might be times
in the future when United States
citizens will want to revisit tried
and true leadership. For example,
if a president had led the country
through war and successfully
reestablished the peace, then ten
years later, if war happened to
Former President Bill Clinton
break out again under a different
president, United States citizens
might decide that they wanted the former president’s wartime leadership
experience. Bill Clinton isn’t the only past president to favor changing term
limits. Ronald Reagan also wanted to abolish them, and so does President
George W. Bush. But is this only because all these men wanted to run again?
Were they thinking of the good of the country or just what would be best
for themselves?
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In this section of the book, we’ll think about and discuss why having
presidential term limits is a good thing for our country.
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If we do away with term limits, presidents
might focus more on staying in office than
on serving their constituents.
Think about a president serving for life. If we do away with term limits, it
could happen. But if a president served for that long, he or she might end
up giving more time and attention to getting reelected than to actually
serving the country’s citizens.
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A politician’s constituents are the people the politician serves. Would
elected officials think more about their careers than their constituents if
there weren’t term limits? Politicians who stay in office for as long as they
can and who make politics their life’s work are called career politicians.
Many people believe that these politicians are more determined to do
whatever it takes to stay in office than to do what is good for the people
and the country. For example, to help pay for their campaigns, some
senators have accepted donations from big businesses that want them to
pass laws that will help these businesses.The longer these senators serve,
the more of these connections they have, and the more they may feel they
owe the businesspeople who have helped them rather than the people
they serve. Many fear that without term limits, the same problem might
arise with the president.
You might think that if presidents aren’t popular with a majority of
people, they couldn’t get reelected, but that’s not always true. George W.
Bush’s reelection in 2004 was narrowly won. Almost half the people who
went to the polls did not vote for him for a second term. Bush still got
reelected, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the majority of United States
citizens wanted him as president for a second term. It just means that the
majority of people who voted wanted him to win. However, because only
about 60 percent of the people who were eligible to vote actually did so in
2004, the voices of many of our country’s people weren’t heard. We didn’t
necessarily elect the most popular candidate.
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Politicians should be in touch with the
people. Term limits make this possible.
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Politicians who have worked in the government for many years often
become insiders, which means they are completely comfortable with the
workings of the government and might even have advantages that regular
people do not.These perks can make a politician’s life better and easier
than that of a typical person, and they can also make it harder for the
politician to be able to understand what the average citizen goes through
on a day-to-day basis.These career politicians can be completely blind to
the problems of their constituents, because the advantages they have from
Drivers line up at a gas station
during a gasoline shortage.
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working in government mean they don’t face the difficulties experienced
by average people. It follows that if presidents are able to serve for
many terms, they might lose touch with what life is really like for their
constituents. For example, in an oil crisis, a president might tell people to
drive less in order to save gasoline.This might make sense to a president
who does not have to worry about how he will get where he wants to go.
But it might not make sense to the majority of Americans who must drive
to get to their jobs and, therefore, can’t drive less.
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President Thomas Jefferson believed it was wrong for politicians
to hold positions of power for so long that they would begin to feel
superior to everyone else. By electing candidates that have the most in
common with the people in the communities they are supposed to serve,
the American people should be able to take back some control of their
government.The candidates who are most likely to be in touch with
average citizens are those who haven’t been in politics for too long.Think
about it. Who would make a better president: a person who has regular
contact and talks often with average citizens, or someone who is separated
from ordinary Americans and has contact only with fellow politicians?
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What are term limits and why should
we do away with them?
Term limits refers to the amount of time that an elected United States
government official can legally serve in a particular office. For example,
the president of the United States is allowed to serve for two four-year
terms.Then, at the end of the second term, even if the president is doing
a great job running the country and is loved by the American people, new
presidential candidates are nominated. A president cannot run for a third
term.This is the law. But is it a good law?
The leaders who were responsible for establishing our country’s
government and its laws believed in democracy. In a democracy, we the
people—the country’s citizens—have the right to vote for whomever
we want.The election of the president is in our hands. In our country’s
early days, there was no such thing as term limits; presidents could run for
reelection as many times as they wanted. However, the United States’ very
first president, George Washington, stepped down from the presidency
after serving two terms. He wasn’t voted out; he just decided that he
wanted to be a private citizen once again. He felt that growing older
made it hard for him to perform the duties that his office required.
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Thomas Jefferson, the United States’ third
president, suggested setting a two-term limit for
the office of president. However, it’s important
to remember that times were very different
then. America had only recently won
independence from England, a country
with an all-powerful leader—a king—who
served for life. United States citizens didn’t
want their new country’s government to be
anything like England’s monarchy, where kings
or queens often ruled for decades. Jefferson
feared that if limits weren’t placed on the
amount of time a president could serve,
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a situation could arise in which we had a president for life—who would
be just like a king. It is easy to see how, more than 200 years ago, the
idea of presidential term limits would have been appealing. Our country’s
government was not yet fully formed, so the fear of having a kinglike ruler
was a very real one. However, more than two centuries later, isn’t it time to
reexamine what kind of government would be best for our nation now?
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Because our country’s early presidents set an example of serving for
only two terms, that’s the way things remained until 1940. At that time,
allies of the United States were fighting in World War II, and instead of
turning over the presidency to a new candidate who lacked wartime
experience, Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt decided to run for
a third term. He was reelected. Four years later, Roosevelt, who was still
popular with the people, ran for and won a fourth term. Members of the
opposing Republican party began to worry that a Republican president
might never again sit in the White House. Others, too, became concerned
about the possibility that in the future a president they didn’t like could
remain in office for decades—even for life! To prevent this from happening,
Congress proposed that an amendment, or addition, be made to the United
States Constitution (the supreme law of our country) limiting the amount
President Roosevelt being inaugurated for a fourth term in 1945
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of time a person could serve as president.The amendment (called the
Twenty-Second Amendment) states that a president cannot be elected for
more than two four-year terms.
But let’s think about this law. If a president is only allowed to be elected
to serve for a total of eight years, is this really democratic? After all, aren’t
the people supposed to be the ones who decide who becomes president?
And if the people want a certain person to remain as president past the
two-term limit, shouldn’t it be their right to make this happen? With term
limits, power is taken out of the hands of the people. If voters don’t want
a particular president, they should have the power to vote that president
out of office.The decision shouldn’t be made for them in the form of term
limits.
Presidents Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush believed
that term limits should be changed. Our government is supposed to be for
and by the people.That means if we want to elect a president for 5 or even
10 terms, we should have that right.
But let’s take a closer look at the issues and investigate why doing away
with term limits is really a good idea.
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Originally, the Constitution did not
include any provisions for presidential
term limits.
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Being president is a difficult job. To be good
at it, a person needs experience.
Think about your favorite professional sports team or a team you play
on yourself. Who would you prefer to have on your team: someone with
lots of experience playing that sport or someone completely new to the
game? Most people who are good at what they do—for example, athletes,
musicians, and artists—got that way through many years of practice and
learning. It’s the same with politicians. It takes time for politicians to learn
the ways of government and figure out how to get things done quickly and
efficiently. With term limits in place, a president has only two full terms
in which to learn the ins and outs of the job and how to do it well. Being
president might be the most challenging job in our country. After all, it’s
the United States’ highest government office. Shouldn’t the president be
given more time to become an expert at the job?
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Sports teams count on
experienced athletes—like
Derek Jeter (top)—to give
them a winning edge.
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The fact that we have presidential term limits suggests that Americans
place less importance on having an experienced president in office than
on having a new face in the position every four or eight years. Being
president of the United States is perhaps the most difficult job in the world,
so of course it requires having an experienced person in the position.
Presidents have to master the skills necessary to successfully run the
country and deal with foreign affairs the same way that a musician needs
to master the guitar or a baseball player needs to master playing shortstop.
Sure, pure talent helps, but it can’t make up for a lack of experience.
Experienced politicians are the ones with the knowledge about what
has worked and not worked in the past, and how best to work with the
members of Congress and other politicians and world leaders to get
things done.
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If presidents know their time will not be cut
short by term limits, they can better use that
time to get things done.
It takes time for presidents not only to gain experience but also to establish
policies and accomplish things that are good for the country. Because of
term limits, even excellent presidents have only eight years to accomplish
everything that they promised during the campaign. Also, in the last couple
of years of the second term, the next election campaign begins, and the
president becomes what is called a “lame duck.”A lame-duck president is
less able to get things done, because other politicians, such as members
of Congress who are responsible for either approving or rejecting the
president’s programs, know that there’s a good chance the new president
might work to reverse the decision anyway. What’s the point of going out
on a limb to support a president who will soon be out of office?
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With a lame-duck president, power begins to shift to other politicians
who might or might not support the president’s projects, depending on who
they suppose the next president will be. Most politicians prefer to get on
the good side of the frontrunner in the race to become the next president
rather than support the current lame duck.As a result, lame-duck presidents
don’t have as much motivation to work hard.They have no chance of being
reelected, so why bother? But if there weren’t term limits, the president
would have hopes of winning the next election, spurring him or her on to
accomplish great things. No more lame ducks.
Newly elected President George W.
Bush is congratulated by President
Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore.
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