U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to journalists as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
A newly introduced constitutional amendment that would allow President Donald Trump to be elected to a third term in the White House faces very long odds — at best — of getting approved, a Harvard Law School professor said Friday.
The professor, Stephen Sachs, said the math and politics of such a proposal are almost certain to doom it.
Rep. Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican, on Thursday introduced a House resolution calling for the change to the U.S. Constitution, whose 22nd Amendment currently limits presidents to two elected terms.
Ogles’ proposed tweak was tailor-made for his fellow Republican Trump because it would allow presidents to be elected for a third term only if their first two terms were nonconsecutive.
Trump is the only currently living president to have been elected to nonconsecutive terms.
Despite the high constitutional bar to being elected to a third term, Trump has hinted about potentially seeking one.
Trump “has proven himself to be the only figure in modern history capable of reversing our nation’s decay and restoring America to greatness, and he must be given the time necessary to accomplish that goal,” Ogles said in a statement Thursday about his amendment.
Sachs, who is the Antonin Scalia Professor of Law at Harvard Law, poured cold water on the idea of Ogles’ resolution surviving a vote in Congress — much less among the states needed to ratify such an amendment.
Stephen Sachs, Antonin Scalia Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
Courtesy: Harvard Law School
Sachs told CNBC it is “very hard” to pass any amendment to the Constitution.
“Under Article V of the Constitution, both the House and the Senate have to approve an amendment proposal by a two-thirds vote,” Sachs noted.
That means 290 “yes” votes out of 435 House members, and 67 of the 100 senators.
Once it is approved by Congress, “then the proposal has to be ratified by either state legislatures or state conventions — the choice is up to Congress — in three-fourths of the states,” Sachs added.
This would amount to winning approval in 38 states.
As hard as it is to pass a constitutional amendment, even if it enjoys broad public support, Ogles’ proposal would face an even higher bar.
It is “impossibly difficult, assuming that it would receive no or very few Democratic votes, either in Congress or in the state legislatures,” Sachs said.
“As of today, there are only 218 Republican representatives, 53 Republican senators and 28 Republican-controlled state legislatures,” Sachs said.
Ogles’ proposal has “attracted a great deal more attention than is warranted by its chances of passage,” Sachs said.
Asked if he thought there would be an appetite in Congress or the states for an amendment that would allow a third elected term for presidents who already had two consecutive terms, Sachs was blunt: “No.”
Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., speaks to reporters ahead of a vote to pass the American Relief Act on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 19, 2024.
Anna Rose Layden | Reuters
The White House has not responded to queries from CNBC about whether Trump supports Ogles’ amendment.
The last time the Constitution was amended was in 1992, when the 27th Amendment was ratified.
That amendment bars pay raises for members of Congress from taking effect until after an election for House members.
That amendment was proposed in 1789 by then-Rep. James Madison during the first Congress but lay dormant for two centuries until a college student in 1982 realized it was still eligible for ratification.
Before that, the 26th Amendment, which gave 18-year-olds the right to vote, was ratified in 1971.