Three days after President Donald Trump delivered his second inaugural address, a congressperson introduced a constitutional amendment to allow the president to run for a third term. The amendment would revise the 22nd Amendment, which declares that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Yet the new amendment proposal seems designed specifically to permit some presidents to run for a third time, and to prohibit others from doing the same. Its language makes clear that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than three times.” (This would authorize President Trump to run for a third time; he has been elected twice.) It states also that no person shall “be elected to any additional term after being elected to two consecutive terms.” This would bar Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama from running for a third term, as all three were elected to back-to-back terms.
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Although President Trump has mused about a third term, the amendment proposal faces long odds. Two-thirds of each house of Congress must approve the proposal, and three-quarters of the states (38 out of 50) must ratify it. That appears unlikely for now, given that the U.S. Constitution is perhaps the world's most difficult to amend. Still, with people talking and tweeting about the amendment proposal, it may quickly go from “off the wall” to squarely “on the wall” as a constitutional possibility.

Quarterfinal voting is now open for the 2024 Book of the Year! The Prize is awarded by the International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism. It is given to the most important book in constitutional studies published in the previous calendar year. 
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Congratulations to the Quarterfinalists:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you to the Expert Council for nominating the original 16 finalists for the 2024 Book of the Year prize. 

 

Antonia Baraggia | Italy
Berihun Gebeye | Ethiopia
Masahiko Kinoshita | Japan
Virginie Kuoch | France
Emilio Meyer | Brazil
Jaime Olaiz-González | Mexico
Marieta Safta | Romania

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You are invited to vote here!

Courts in Divided Societies 

I recommend a new paper by Iddo Porat, forthcoming in the American Journal of Comparative Law: Apex Courts in Polarized Societies – A Comparative Study of Brazil, India, and Israel. In his paper, Porat asks “how do courts function in an environment of political polarization?” He describes how the Brazilian, Indian, and Israeli high courts have dealt with this problem, and mines their similarities and differences for larger lessons.

Times Higher Education has released its 2025 ranking of the world's best law schools. As in prior years, the Top 10 is dominated by schools in the United States and the United Kingdom: 

1. Stanford University

2. Harvard University

3. New York University

4. University of Cambridge

5. Columbia University

6. University of California, Berkeley

7. University of Oxford

8. University of Chicago

9. Yale University

10. University College London

Meet Melina Girardi Fachin, Dean of the Law School at Universidade Federal do Paraná in Brazil, where she also serves as a Professor of Constitutional Law. An expert in human rights and feminist constitutionalism, she holds a postdoctoral degree from Coimbra University and a PhD in Law from PUC-SP, Brazil. She resides in Curitiba.

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I am currently exploring feminist constitutionalism in its multilevel dimensions, with a focus on dialogues between human rights and international protection systems, aiming to analyze their transformative potential in judicial outcomes for women.  

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Beverley Baines has been pivotal for feminist constitutionalism, particularly her analyses of equality and constitutional norms. Her contributions, combined with the seminal work of Catharine MacKinnon on gender and power, have profoundly shaped my understanding of how law can advance or hinder women’s rights.  

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I recommend reading my co-authored paper on Feminist Constitutionalism as an Instrument for the Educational Transformation of Spaces of Intelligibility in Law.

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Editor's Note: If you would like to nominate someone for a future edition of “Three Questions,” please let me know!

I had a fun conversation with Luke Pickrell on his podcast, The Democratic Constitution. We discussed the foundations of the United States Constitution, the impossibility of constitutional reform using Article V, as well as the risks and benefits of a constitutional convention in the United States. 

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When I logged-in for our conversation, I thought it was an audio-only podcast. I was therefore dressed in my jogging clothes, planning to go for a run after our recoding. Yet it turned out to be a video podcast! We pressed on anyway, and had a truly enjoyable discussion.

In their new paper, Nick Robinson and Jyotika Randhawa examine a peculiar practice on the Supreme Court of India: most cases are heard in benches of two or three judges, but the Constitution requires cases raising a “substantial question" of constitutional law to be heard by a bench of at least five judges. How does the Court determine the number of judges to hear an appeal? And what about the identity of the judges assigned to each case? Their paper, titled Deciding How Many Judges Should Decide: The Question of Constitution Benches at the Indian Supreme Court, tackles these questions. It is forthcoming in the International Journal of Constitutional Law.

I received a visit from Manuel González Oropeza, a former judge of the Federal Electoral Tribunal of Mexico and currently a candidate vying for election to the Supreme Court of Mexico. On our visit, he gifted me a copy of his latest book Actas Del Constituyente De 1823-1824, a record of the constituent debates leading to the enactment of the 1824 Constitution of Mexico. (This Constitution was also the first to govern Texas.)