Two Supreme Court justices – a conservative and the court docket’s senior liberal – appeared to shut down talk of a third term for President Donald Trump in separate appearances this week, with each suggesting that the two-term language included within the 22nd Amendment is obvious.
The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 after the demise of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the one president to serve greater than two phrases. The modification states that “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who Trump appointed to the excessive court docket throughout his first term, instructed Fox News in an interview that aired Monday that it was “true” that the 22nd Amendment seems to restrict a president’s tenure – regardless of Trump’s yearslong flirtations with a third term.
“That’s what the amendment says, right?” Barrett instructed Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier. “After FDR had four terms, that’s what that amendment says.”
Baier initially famous that the modification says a president can run solely two occasions.
“True,” Barrett responded.
Trump has often teased the idea of operating for a third term, and his firm’s web site encourages folks to “rewrite the rules” by buying a “Trump 2028” baseball cap.
Whether the president is severe or simply making an attempt to enrage his critics, it’s notable that two Supreme Court justices have been requested in regards to the legality of the concept in separate interviews this week.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court docket’s senior liberal, was pressed Tuesday on the identical query throughout an look on ABC’s “The View.”
“The Constitution is settled law. No one has tried to challenge that,” Sotomayor stated. “But it is in the Constitution, and one should understand that there’s nothing that is the greater law in the United States than the Constitution of the United States.”
Though justices not often communicate to media, Barrett and Sotomayor are each selling books and due to this fact showing at public occasions and sitting for interviews. Even as they achieve this, the Supreme Court is dealing with a flood of emergency cases coping with Trump’s efforts to consolidate energy throughout the government department.
Barrett, for essentially the most half, seems to have voted with Trump in these instances. Sotomayor, who was named to the court docket by former President Barack Obama, has frequently dissented.
Barrett’s cautious language in response to Baier – she declined to say straight whether or not the matter was “cut and dried” – drew some criticism on social media.
But Sotomayor additionally advised the matter was “not settled” as a result of “we don’t have a court case about that issue.”
Justices just about by no means focus on their ideas on what’s authorized (or not) in public, so the statements from each Barrett and Sotomayor had been notable.