FOUR-YEAR TERM RECOMMENDED

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30965, 22 January 1966, Page 13

FOUR-YEAR TERM RECOMMENDED

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright;

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21.

President Johnson yesterday proposed a constitutional amendment to double the terms of members of the House of Representatives to four years.

The constitutional amendment he submitted to the House and to the Senate would mean that all 435 members of the House would stand for election in a presidential election year instead of at two-year intervals as at present.

Senators are elected for six-year terms. The President said elections every two years militated against good government in an age calling for decisions on complex problems. His proposal cannot be adopted until it has been approved by a two-thirds vote of the House and the Senate and by 38 of the 50 states. Its main disadvantage, according to its opponents, is that it would cancel elections that permit voters to express approval or disapproval of Administration policies halfway through a President’s four-year term. Further Amendment The President also asked Congress to adopt another constitutional amendment which would change the present electoral college system of easting votes for President and Vice-President. American voters cast their ballots for state representatives who form the electoral college. The candidate winning a majority of the popular vote in a state receives that state’s electoral college vote. But not all states have a legal requirement that members of the electoral college must cast their own ballots in accordance with the majority vote. There have been cases in the past when an electoral college member has cast his ballot for a losing candidate. Under the system now pro-

posed by President Johnson, the results of the popular vote would automatically bind members of the electoral college.