Presidential Accountability and the Twenty-Second Amendment: A Little Math

Note: Having just spent the morning writing a short essay about the Twenty-Second Amendment, I was dismayed to find that Jeffrey Gordon had just posted a much more thoughtful piece on the same subject. Accordingly, I have cut away the parts of mine that seem duplicative of his. But I did approach the problem quantitatively and so am posting a stripped down version to make that analysis available. * * * In Slaughter v. FTC, the Supreme Court relied on extensive Originalist arguments to strike down most congressional limitations on the President’s power to remove executive officials. The Court declared that “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.” In Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Court declared that the growth of federal powers “only sharpens our duty to ensure that the Executive Branch is overseen by a President…