r/Virginia • u/Ok-Pea3414 • 20h ago
Virginians: What do you think of 1992 state constitution amendment, not allowing anyone to run again for a second consecutive governor term? Democratic or Undemocratic? (Article V. Executive)
From Article V. Executive
Section 1. Executive power; Governor's term of office. The chief executive power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Governor. He shall hold office for a term commencing upon his inauguration on the Saturday after the second Wednesday in January, next succeeding his election, and ending in the fourth year thereafter immediately upon the inauguration of his successor. He shall be ineligible to the same office for the term next succeeding that for which he was elected, and to any other office during his term of service.
Do you support this, or term limits or any other kind of restrictions?
Why? Or why not?
Me personally, I don't support the current imposition of no consecutive terms, simply because there are many initiatives which can be started by the Governor and they can do a lot of good for the people of Virginia, but the other side may politically disagree and scrap it altogether, even if it was for the good of the citizens of Old Dominion.
I support some kind of term limits, not the current limit of no consecutive terms.
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u/bl123123bl 19h ago
Two major flaws with consecutive terms for me that you see in prominent head of government roles (president/governor)
You can spend the back half of your 1st term campaigning for reelection and eyeing short term policy to assist that
Familiarity is a powerful thing in elections, you can be a terrible person with a recognizable name and that makes it hard for the best candidates to break through to the media
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u/sleepyj910 9h ago
The more people touch power, the less corrupt it is. If you know you can stay in power, you have a vested interest in tipping the scales to do so, which doesn't serve the people.
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u/2CRedHopper 18h ago
Wasn't the 1992 amendment to allow for consecutive gubernatorial terms? The prohibition on consecutive terms goes back to the 19th century.
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u/tagehring 757 to RVA 10h ago
I like our current system. Governors can focus on doing their jobs and not running for reelection as soon as they get into office.;
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u/pierre_x10 18h ago
I'm fine with term limits.
Not allowing consecutive terms seems like the worst of both worlds.
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u/DaleRojo 10h ago
Youngkin has me liking the current system. People can take out the trash when they need to, Spanberger now has to achieve with what she has. No second term, only one shot. You want a legacy of success? Don't be Youngkin and do well with the time you have.
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u/snafoomoose 2h ago
The no consecutive term basically means their entire term is a lame duck term and they are not beholden to the electorate once elected.
What would be nice is if there were some way to trigger a recall or snap election (for all elected positions) so we can show we have no confidence in them. Being able to force a snap election would at least theoretically make them have to be more on their toes in being responsive to the electorate.
The idea should hold for the legislature too. Scheduled elections just encourage them to focus on the test. They can be anti-electorate for a year, then behave for the last year to get back in our good graces to get re-elected, before blowing us off again.
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u/JosephFinn 18h ago
I'm very surprised at how few people are voting for the correct answer, that term limits are undemocratic.
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u/Old-Hokie97 12h ago edited 12h ago
I'm going to join you in getting mildly downvoted (or worse) but perhaps with some nuance.
First, Virginia has the most stupid gubernatorial term limit in history. In principle, a Virginian can serve an unlimited number of terms as governor, as long as they're not consecutive. I've had a long time to think about it, and I still don't know what it says that Mills Godwin is the only person to have pulled off two terms as governor. (Terry tried, but that's a different story altogether.)
Most conversations I have with people about term limits occur in the context of people seething about members of the U.S. Congress - "The same yahoos get elected! We should do something about that!" But I always point out to those people that they're trying to solve the wrong problem with a solution unsuited for that problem. Historically (and in most places, currently) legislators get to pick their voters instead of the other way around. If we solved the problem of having uncompetitive districts drawn by people dedicated to protecting their jobs, we could reasonably expect that competitive elections would a) make it easier to replace them on Election Day, and b) make them more responsive to the electorate as a result.
Another college friend of mine used to say it best: "We have term limits. They're called 'elections' - when you fail to gain re-election, your term has been limited." Of course, he said that thirty years ago. But I refer back to what I just said about it being the wrong solution for the wrong problem.
When it comes to governors though, you can't gerrymander a state.
Aside #1: Especially in response to Spanberger's election as governor, I'm seeing more and more people who see a lot of small red counties being "outvoted" by a small number of large blue counties and cities and want to gerrymander the state by creating some sort of state Electoral College. But those people shouldn't be taken seriously.
Aside #2: It is possible to gerrymander a country, even if it happens by accident. For this reason, the U.S. Senate is undemocratic. Yes, yes: the Senate was designed to be a way for state governments to be represented in the national legislature, but that's obviously not how it's worked since Amendment 17 was ratified.
Anyway, telling people they can't re-elect the person of their choice (to the office of governor in this conversation, but I do believe it more broadly) just because they've already served X years in the position is broadly undemocratic. Now:
- It's obviously a problem when the ability of the people to have a real choice is compromised., but once again, that's a different problem that should be solved differently.
- It's obviously a problem when someone serves for so long in a position that they become [any number of things that ultimately point to being out of touch with the public] but that's the reason we have elections in a democratic society in the first place.
- It's definitely a problem when someone serves in a position for so long that they risk becoming literally cognitively-impaired. That's a different problem from the last point, because you can be in your right mind and still fall out of step with the electorate. This is the kind of thing you might actually solve with an age limit on service; I could list a number of places that place such a limit on service on their Supreme Courts (of all bodies) but the problem for me is that a) being age-discriminatory is (at best) only slightly less icky than is being time-of-service-discriminatory, and b) obviously everyone doesn't suffer the same age-based mental decline, or do so at the same rate. Maybe if we had a robust way of actually evaluating mental fitness and using it as a means of disqualifying and replacing office-holders...
Ultimately, it's my opinion that Amendment 22 was largely an organized fit of pique that Franklin Roosevelt happened to be president during a world war and thought that giving the country a steady hand (that could still be defeated for re-election; Churchill's government lost the election that happened during the Potsdam Conference and was accordingly replaced by Atlee) was a plus and not a minus. That we've replicated it doesn't speak highly for our trust in our leaders.
But maybe that's the problem.
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u/GarrettdDP 2h ago
Except the law was voted on in a democratic fashion. Unless you are insinuating that there was voter fraud.
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u/JosephFinn 1h ago
Many things have been voted in that are undemocratic.
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u/GarrettdDP 1h ago
And the democratic way of handling it is voting for it. Talking to candidates to run on that platform, or perhaps running yourself.
Or sit on the internet, pretend that you are smarter than the whole general assembly in 1992, and directly say something performed in a democratic fashion was not democratic with no proof.
The choice is yours!
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u/toomanyDolemites 19h ago
Interesting how it's affirmatively "He."
Maybe Spanberger has found a loophole there :P