After re-watching the Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou I read a little on W. Lee O’Daniel, a Texas pol who served as something of a character model for the fictional governor of Mississippi in the 1930’s running for re-election.
An anonymous note in IMDB said that, BTW, in Mississippi gubernatorial incumbents were forbidden from doing so until 1970-something.
True? Also, what the hell? How many states have or had that? Or national elective offices?
Term limits are related, I guess, Presidential most obviously, but as we know congress critters keep coming back.
Are you referring to “Resign-to-run laws”, which prohibits current elected officials from running for a different office? It’s not related to term limits though.
a) I don’t what the hell I’m referring to, beyond a random IMDB statement
b) That’s a good cite, but doesn’t match the situation in the movie (or, as we know, in many real-life incumbencies, although President Obama’s Senate career pre-electioneering is a notable example.
In Virginia, a governor may not serve consecutive terms, but he or she may run again in any election thereafter. Only two have ever served more than once, though.
I’m still confused. Are you saying the sitting governor IS running for re-election, or wants to run but cannot, because there is a prohibition on serving consecutive terms?
He’s talking about some states having laws in which an elected official - typically statewide - can’t succeed themselves. Some are still on the books, such as Virginia.
Georgia used to have it - in 1970 Jimmy Carter won the election for governor - the incumbent Lester Maddox was barred from running, but became the Lt. Governor.
If you’re talking about a governor being limited to a single term, Missouri had that law until 1970. A governor would have to sit out at least one election before being eligible to serve again.
Alabama had a similar law, which was also changed during that same era. Don’t know about other states.
To bring it back to the original question: according to a 2005 article on governing.com, Mississippi’s one-term governorship law was on the books until 1986:
These rules seem to have been almost universal throughout the South at least during bits of the 20th century.
Amendment 282 to the Alabama Constitution was passed in 1968, and changed the single-term limit to a two term limit.
Florida had a single-term limit after statehood in 1845, then ratified a new constitution in 1868 under the Reconstruction government which dropped the one-term limit; it was then reintroduced in 1885, and dropped again in 1968.
Georgia had a one-term limit from 1945 to 1983.
1968 seems to have been a big year for dropping one term limitations. I suspect it had something to do with retaining anti-segregation governors like George Wallace (whose wife stood in for him essentially as a proxy candidate in the 1966 election, which Wallace was barred from entering due to the one term limit).
