Amendment 22 — Presidential term limits

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1951 amendment limiting presidents to two terms

"Twenty-second Amendment" redirects here. For other uses, see Twenty-second Amendment (disambiguation).

The Twenty-second Amendment ( Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of President of the United States to two, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.[1] Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, when the requisite 36 of the 48 states had ratified the amendment (neither Alaska nor Hawaii had yet been admitted as a state), and its provisions came into force on that date.

The amendment prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected to the office again. Under the amendment, someone who fills more than 2 years of an unexpired presidential term is also prohibited from being elected president more than once. Scholars debate whether the amendment prohibits affected individuals from succeeding to the presidency under any circumstances or whether it applies only to presidential elections. Until the amendment's ratification, the president had not been subject to term limits, but both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (the first and third presidents) decided not to run for a third term, establishing a two-term tradition. In the 1940 and 1944 presidential elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the only president to be elected for a third and fourth term, giving rise to concerns about a president serving unlimited terms.[2]

Ratification by the states

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A map of how the states voted on the Twenty-second Amendment The Twenty-Second Amendment in the National Archives

Once submitted to the states, the 22nd Amendment was ratified by:[3]

1. Maine: March 31, 1947

2. Michigan: March 31, 1947

3. Iowa: April 1, 1947

4. Kansas: April 1, 1947

5. New Hampshire: April 1, 1947

6. Delaware: April 2, 1947

7. Illinois: April 3, 1947

8. Oregon: April 3, 1947

9. Colorado: April 12, 1947

10. California: April 15, 1947

11. New Jersey: April 15, 1947

12. Vermont: April 15, 1947

13. Ohio: April 16, 1947

14. Wisconsin: April 16, 1947

15. Pennsylvania: April 29, 1947

16. Connecticut: May 21, 1947

17. Missouri: May 22, 1947

18. Nebraska: May 23, 1947

19. Virginia: January 28, 1948

20. Mississippi: February 12, 1948

21. New York: March 9, 1948

22. South Dakota: January 21, 1949

23. North Dakota: February 25, 1949

24. Louisiana: May 17, 1950

25. Montana: January 25, 1951

26. Indiana: January 29, 1951

27. Idaho: January 30, 1951

28. New Mexico: February 12, 1951

29. Wyoming: February 12, 1951

30. Arkansas: February 15, 1951

31. Georgia: February 17, 1951

32. Tennessee: February 20, 1951

33. Texas: February 22, 1951

34. Utah: February 26, 1951

35. Nevada: February 26, 1951

36. Minnesota: February 27, 1951

    Ratification was completed when the Minnesota Legislature ratified the amendment. On March 1, 1951, the Administrator of General Services, Jess Larson, issued a certificate proclaiming the 22nd Amendment duly ratified and part of the Constitution. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:[3]

37. North Carolina: February 28, 1951

38. South Carolina: March 13, 1951

39. Maryland: March 14, 1951

40. Florida: April 16, 1951

41. Alabama: May 4, 1951

Conversely, two states—Massachusetts and Oklahoma—rejected the amendment, while five (Arizona, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Washington, and West Virginia) took no action.[19]