US lawmaker wants third for Trump, introduces bill

Tennessee lawmaker proposes amendment that would allow Trump to run for 3rd term

Could President Donald Trump run for a third term?

One Republican lawmaker wants to make President Trump eligible to run for a third time. Can it be done?

The Brief
Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican from Tennessee, proposed a resolution that would allow President Donald Trump to run for a third term.

Ogles said Trump “has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay…”
The U.S. Constitution is famously difficult to amend.
A Tennessee representative has introduced a resolution that would allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term.

Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., wants to amend the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution so the country “can sustain the bold leadership our nation so desperately needs,” according to a Thursday news release.

Ogles’ suggested amendment
According to Ogles, his suggested amendment would read:

“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times, nor be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms, 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 twice.”

What they’re saying:

Ogles argued that it was “imperative” to provide Trump with “every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration.”

“President Trump has shown time and time again that his loyalty lies with the American people and our great nation above all else. He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him,” Ogles said.

What is the 22nd Amendment?
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, prevents a person from serving as president for more than two terms.

It was passed by Congress in 1947 in response to Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning four terms in the White House. Roosevelt died the year after he was elected to his fourth term in the 1944 presidential election.

Amending the Constitution is not easy
There have been about 11,000 proposed amendments to the Constitution and only 27 have actually gone through since it was drafted in 1787, and that includes the first 10 amendments that came four years later, known as the Bill of Rights, according to the Truman Library.

A vast majority of proposed amendments die in committees and subcommittees.

Why you should care:
The Constitution has virtually no chance of being ratified, but this recent resolution shows the loyalty some of the GOP has to Trump.

Trump even made comments about serving a third term to House Republicans during a closed-door speech late last year, but multiple sources who attended the event told Fox News Digital that the then-president-elect was joking.

While campaigning last year, Trump made comments telling an audience of Christians that they “won’t have to vote anymore” once he was elected president.

During an interview later with FOX News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump tried to clarify his comments, saying Christians don’t vote in large numbers.

Trump made similar comments at another Christian-focused event, in which he lamented the voting rates of Christians and implored them to participate in the election.

“In four years, you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years, don’t vote. I don’t care,” he said.

The process
Dig deeper:
Firstly, the president has no power over this process.
A proposal can be introduced by either the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

(None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention, according to the National Archives website).

The proposal is then sent to the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Office of the Federal Register (OFR) for processing and publication.

The OFR adds any legislative history notes and puts together an information package for the states about the proposal.

The NARA then sends the proposal to state governors for their review.

The governors then submit the proposal to their state legislatures or states can call for a convention, depending on what Congress asks for.

Once a state ratifies or rejects a proposed amendment, it gets sent back to the NARA for authentication.

The OFR will retain all documents until each state submits their adoptions or rejections.

A proposed amendment will only become part of the Constitution if it is ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 of 50).

If the OFR receives enough to go on with the amendment, it drafts a formal proclamation for the NARA to certify that the amendment is valid, and it will then become part of the Constitution.

The Source: Information for this article was gathered from FOX News, the Pew Research Center, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum website, the National Archive website, the National Conference of State Legislatures website, and a news release from Rep. Andy Ogles’ website. This story was reported from Los Angeles.