Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution
Some argue that the 22nd Amendment and 12th Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the presidential line of succession. Others contend that the original intent of the 12th Amendment concerns qualification for "service" (age, residence, and citizenship), while the 22nd Amendment, concerns qualifications for "election", and thus (strictly applying the text) a former two-term president is still eligible to "serve" as vice president (neither amendment restricts the number of times an individual can be elected to the vice presidency), and then succeed to the presidency to serve out the balance of the term (though prohibited from running for election to an additional term).
Term limits in the United States
In the 1994 elections, part of the Republican platform included legislation for term limits in Congress. After winning the majority, a Republican congressman brought a constitutional amendment to the House floor that proposed limiting members of the Senate to two six-year terms and members of the House to six two-year terms. However, this rate of rotation was so slow (the life-tenured Supreme Court averages in the vicinity of twelve years) that the congressional version of term-limits garnered little support among the populist backers of term limits, including U.S. Term Limits, the largest private organization pushing for congressional term limits. The bill got only a bare majority (227–204), falling short of the two-thirds majority (290) needed for constitutional amendments. Three other term limit amendment bills failed to get more than 200 votes.