In a little more than a month, Abigail Spanberger will be sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor. Which brings up a question almost as old as the Old Dominion itself: Should the state reconsider its restriction on governors being able to seek a second consecutive term?
That’s not to say that Spanberger would be deserving of a second term. Heck, she hasn’t even moved into the executive mansion yet.
Virginia stands alone in restricting governors to a single four-year term. The state’s 1851 constitution, the one that gave Virginians the right to directly elect its governor, put this single term limit in place.
Technically, a governor can run for a second term in Virginia—just not twice in a row. There was one person in recent history who did serve as Virginia’s governor twice: Mills E. Godwin Jr. was the state’s 60th and 62nd governor, first elected in 1965 as part of the Democratic Party’s Byrd political machine; then eight years later, after switching parties and running as a Republican. ...