By Adam Pagnucco.
Former GOP county executive candidate Reardon Sullivan has established a new ballot issue committee that aims to place a charter amendment on the ballot limiting the county executive to two terms. MoCo360 reported on discussion of the charter amendment at the county GOP convention last month. Sullivan established the committee, called Committee for Better Government, on March 26 and is chairing it. Any charter amendment that qualifies for the ballot would be placed before the voters in the November 2024 general election at the earliest.
Sullivan sent me the following statement on behalf of his term limits amendment.
The ballot issue committee, Committee for Better Government, was formed to protect Montgomery County from unchecked policies that don’t support the citizens of the County, are expensive and/or impractical such as the proposed 10% property tax increases, reduced public safety and police protection, and lackluster business growth propagated by our current County Executive, Marc Elrich.
It would seem reasonable that the Montgomery County Executive would serve no more terms than the U.S. President or the Maryland Governor. If it’s good enough for Reagan, Obama and Hogan it should be good enough for Montgomery County. Eight years is plenty of time to “finish the job.”
It’s time to turn the tide of Montgomery County households and businesses moving to Frederick, Fairfax, and Florida.
Our charter amendment will bring a new face and fresh ideas to our County.
The process for amending a charter is established by Article XI-A, Sec. 5 of the state’s constitution. The section states:
Amendments to any charter adopted by the City of Baltimore or by any County of this State under the provisions of this Article may be proposed by a resolution of the Mayor of Baltimore and the City Council of the City of Baltimore, or the Council of the County, or by a petition signed by not less than 20% of the registered voters of the City or County, provided, however, that in any case 10,000 signatures shall be sufficient to complete a petition. A petition shall be filed with the Mayor of Baltimore or the President of the County Council. An amendment so proposed shall be submitted to the voters of the City or County at the next general or congressional election occurring after the passage of the resolution or the filing of the petition. If at the election the majority of the votes cast for and against the amendment shall be in favor thereof, the amendment shall be adopted and become a part of the charter of the City or County from and after the thirtieth day after said election. The amendments shall be published by the Mayor of Baltimore or President of the County Council once a week for five successive weeks prior to the election in at least one newspaper published in said City or County (amended by Chapter 681, Acts of 1977, ratified Nov. 7, 1978).
This means that Sullivan and his supporters have more than a year to gather at least 10,000 signatures for submittal to the county government. Because many signatures are thrown out, Sullivan will want to have a comfortable margin above the threshold. In 2020, a group petitioning nine county council districts to the ballot gathered 16,391 signatures and the county board of elections validated 11,522, qualifying the amendment for the ballot.
Most charter counties in Maryland have term limits and the most common limit is two terms. Following is a list of limits by county.
Anne Arundel County: Two terms for executive and council.
Baltimore City: Two terms for mayor, comptroller, city council president and city council. This was just passed by voters in the 2022 general election.
Baltimore County: Two terms for executive, no limits for council. The Baltimore County Council defeated term limits legislation for themselves in 2021.
Cecil County: No limits.
Frederick County: Two terms for executive, three terms for council.
Harford County: Two terms for executive, none for council.
Howard County: Two terms for executive, three terms for council.
Montgomery County: Three terms for executive and council.
Prince George’s County: Two terms for executive and council. However, district council members who serve two terms may then immediately serve two more terms as at-large members.
Wicomico County: No limits.
Almost all of the counties who have term limits specify that they apply to consecutive terms, meaning that an elected official could leave office and then return. Howard County is a partial exception. On term limits for the council, its charter states, “A person who has been elected to the County Council three times or who has been elected to the County Council twice and has been appointed to fill a Council vacancy and served two or more years of that term shall be ineligible to be a candidate for the County Council.” On term limits for the executive, its charter states, “No person shall be eligible to succeed himself or herself in office if he or she has served as Executive for two consecutive four-year terms.”
I will have a lot more to say about this effort and whether it will lead to meaningful change if passed. In the meantime, this will be a big story in the coming months. Let’s follow it together!