Text 20110, 86 rader
Skriven 2006-05-17 11:58:14 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av LEE LOFASO
Ärende: 22nd Amendment
======================
Seems this law perfesser agrees with you.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_8644.shtml

From Capitol Hill Blue

Opinion
Bring back Bill Clinton
By PAUL CAMPOS
May 17, 2006, 04:40

Most people now agree that the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which
limits presidents to two elected terms, was a mistake. Never has that been
more obvious than at present, when most Americans are legally barred from
voting for a man they would like to see back in the White House.

Recent opinion polls confirm that Bill Clinton, who after eight years in
office garnered the highest approval ratings ever recorded for a president
at the end of his term, remains immensely popular. This is hardly
surprising: under Clinton's stewardship America enjoyed a booming economy,
gargantuan budget surpluses, almost no military conflict, and the respect
of the international community.

By contrast, less than six years after the end of the comparative golden
era that was the Clinton presidency, America is drowning in record levels
of debt, mired in a catastrophic war, and hated by almost all of our former
allies. It's no wonder that George W. Bush appears to be well on the way to
becoming the most unpopular president in American history. Indeed, if not
for the 22nd Amendment, it seems likely that Bill Clinton would still be
president, and we would have avoided most of the calamities of the past
five years.

It follows that anyone who could devise some legal way to return Clinton to
the presidency would be performing a service of such magnitude that he
would deserve to have his statue adorn every public square of this great
nation.

I therefore submit the following proposal: When Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton, D-N.Y., makes her long-expected announcement that she is running
for president, she should also announce that her husband will be her
running mate, and that, if elected, she will resign from office, effective
Jan. 21, 2009.

The meaning of the text of the 22nd Amendment could not be plainer. It
reads, in relevant part, "No person shall be elected to the office of the
President more than twice." And, as legal scholars such as Justice Antonin
Scalia have pointed out many times in recent years, when the meaning of a
legal text is plain, it is both unnecessary and illegitimate to enforce
anything other than that meaning.

Thus, while Bill Clinton cannot be re-elected, nothing bars him from
becoming president again. Indeed, one suspects that much of Hillary
Clinton's status as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential
nomination is a product of the hope that, by electing her, the people would
be re-electing her husband in all but name.

Yet such is the perversity of the human _ or, more precisely, the
legalistic _ spirit, that some wretched shyster is sure to object that the
12th Amendment prohibits the carrying out of this beneficent plan. The 12th
Amendment provides that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the
office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the
United States."

Bill Clinton is not "constitutionally ineligible to the office of
President." He is merely constitutionally ineligible to be elected
president. Furthermore, how would the claim that the 12th Amendment bars
Clinton from serving as president ever come to be enforced as a matter of
law? Such a thing could happen only if the Supreme Court were to choose to
entangle itself in the purely political question of who ought to be our
next president _ something that the current Supreme Court, dominated by
conservative jurists opposed to judicial activism, would surely refuse to
do.

Only the 18th Amendment, which enacted Prohibition, can compete with the
22nd for the title of worst change to the text of the Constitution. We can
always hope that, just as Prohibition was formally repealed, the 22nd
Amendment will meet a similar fate. Until then, the legal path to another
era of peace and prosperity is clear.

(Paul C. Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado and can be
reached at Paul.Campos(at)Colorado.edu.)

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Try Our Web Based QWK: DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)