Twentieth Amendment, Section 1:

The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 of the Constitution1 fixed the term of the President at four years. By a resolution of the Confederation, Congress commenced under the Constitution on March 4, 1789. Consequently, the February 6, 1933 ratification of Section 1 of the Twentieth Amendment in effect shortened the terms of the President and Vice President elected in 1932 by the interval between January 20 and March 4, 1937.

Similarly, ratification of the Twentieth Amendment shortened, by the intervals between January 3 and March 4, the terms of Senators elected for terms ending March 4, 1935, 1937, and 1939; and thus temporarily modified the Seventeenth Amendment, fixing the terms of Senators at six years. It also shortened the terms of Representatives elected to the 73rd Congress, by the interval between January 3 and March 4, 1935, and temporarily modified Article I, Section 2, Clause 1, fixing the terms of Representatives at two years.

Footnotes

1

See ArtII.S1.C1.9 Term of the President.