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Nashville-Davidson Metro Council Term Limit Increase, Amendment 1 (August 2015)
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A measure to increase city council term limits from two to three terms by 2023 was on the ballot for voters within the limits of the consolidated city-county metro of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, on August 6, 2015. It was defeated.
If approved, this measure would have extended council term limits from two to three terms. The change would have been fully implemented by 2023.[1]
Council Member Emily Evans backed a separate, citizen-initiated charter amendment designed to establish a three-term limit for council members that was also on the August 2015 ballot. This amendment was crafted to reduce the number of council members from 40 to 27 as well as providing a more lenient term limit rule. It was also defeated.
In the metro's municipal election on August 6, 2015, 22 of the 40 city council members—not counting the mayor or vice mayor—were ousted by the city's term limits. The term-limited members and some early retirements left well over half of the city council seats up for grabs with no incumbent defending the position. The Mayor Karl Dean was also term-limited, leaving the office of mayor open to one of the seven challengers that filed as candidates for the office. Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors was also term-limited. The large, forced turnover in city leaders was hailed by supporters of Amendment 1 and Amendment 2 as an argument in favor of extending term limits. For details on the outcomes of the municipal election races, see this page.
Election results
| Nashville Amendment 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
 No | 63,305 | 64.18% | ||
| Yes | 35,328 | 35.82% | ||
- Election results from Nashville Election Commission
Text of measure
Ballot summary
The following summary of Amendment 1 appeared on the ballot:[2]
| “ |
This amendment would increase the term limits effective as of the August 2023 Metropolitan Government general election for the office of vice mayor, district councilmember, and councilmember-at-large from two consecutive four year terms to three consecutive four year terms.[3] |
” |
Full text
The full text of the amendment is available here.
Background
Voters approved the city's two-term limit in 1994. Between 1994 and the beginning of 2015, three separate ballot measures seeking to extend or remove the city's term limit law were defeated by voters. Amendment 1 and Amendment 2 were brought the count up to five. The last term limit measure before the 2015 amendments was defeated in 2002.[4][5]
Council Member Ronnie Steine, who introduced and sponsored this measure, said, "Always raised to me is the notion that voters have spoken on this (term-limit) issue several times. I agree, but the last time voters spoke on this was in 2002. I would argue that it's an important enough issue that we ought to reconsider it in [sic] once a decade."[6]
Support
Supporters
Council Member Ronnie Steine introduced and sponsored this amendment.[6]
Arguments in favor
Supporters of this measure argued that the huge turnover forced by the city's term limits—epitomized by the 24 members of the city council, including the mayor and vice-mayor, being term-limited this year—periodically results in a large contingent of inexperienced council members faced with the complex issues of city governance. Describing the city's term limit law as "draconian," Council Member Evans argued that it did nothing but reduce the influence and authority of council members and impede active representation of the voters.[7]
Opposition
Opponents
A group called Nashville Term Limits opposed both this measure and the citizen-initiated charter amendment backed by Council Member Emily Evans.[5]
Arguments against
Opponents of the amendment argued that the city's term limits keep the city council members accountable to the voters, prevent abuses of authority, force fresh perspectives and prevent the advantage of incumbency from ruling politics in the city.[5]
Critics also pointed out that voters had rejected three separate efforts to eliminate or extend the city council's term limits since voters first approved the law in 1994 and argued that the city council should have honored the will of the voters by refraining from proposing such amendments.[4]
Editorials
- The Tennessean: The editorial board of The Tennessean wrote an editorial urging voters to reject Amendment 1. Although the editorial board's official position was that there should be no term limits for city council members, the editorial argued that the voters' past decisions in favor of term limits should be honored and that it was foolish to try to extend term limits without offering some further city government reform. Ultimately, the editorial urged voters to approve Amendment 2 instead of Amendment 1. Amendment 2, a citizen initiative, was designed to both extend term limits and reduce the council's size. An excerpt of the editorial is below:
| “ |
The editorial board’s position is that there should be no term limits, rather that voters should decide when to end a politician’s service through the ballot box. However, Nashville voters have made clear again and again that they want to limit the amount of time politicians can serve in office. That is why extending term limits alone without offering voters something else in return is ill-conceived. We recommend voting “No” on Amendment 1.[3] |
” |
| —Editorial board of The Tennessean[4] | ||
Path to the ballot
On May 19, 2015, Council Member Ronnie Steine, the sponsor of the measure, narrowly succeeded in attaining enough "yes" votes from his fellow council members to put the amendment on the ballot. The council voted 27-9 in favor of moving forward with the ballot measure; two council members abstained from voting. According to the city's requirements for putting a charter amendment before voters, 27 was the minimum number of votes needed.[6]
Related measures
- Nashville-Davidson Metro "Ban the Box" Initiative to Remove Criminal Background Questions from Metro Job Applications (August 2015)
- Nashville-Davidson County Metro Marijuana Decriminalization Initiative (August 2015)
- Nashville-Davidson Metro Council Member Reduction and Term Limit Extension Ballot Initiative, Amendment 2 (August 2015)
- Nashville-Davidson Metro Local-Hire Mandate for Taxpayer-Funded Projects Initiative, Amendment 3 (August 2015)
Other elections
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Nashville term limit Amendment 1. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Laws governing local ballot measures in Tennessee
- City governance on the ballot
- Local term limits on the ballot
- Davidson County, Tennessee ballot measures
- August 6, 2015 ballot measures in Tennessee
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ The Tennessean, "'Ban the Box' referendum falls short for August ballot," June 13, 2015
- ↑ Nashville Elections Office, "Sample Ballot for Election on August 6, 2015," accessed August 3, 2015
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Tennessean, "Vote No, Yes, No on Nashville charter amendments," July 22, 2015
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Nashville Term Limits, "Home," accessed June 15, 2015
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Tennessean, "Metro term-limit proposals on track for ballot," May 19, 2015
- ↑ The Tennessean, "Reduce Nashville council size, extend term limits," June 28, 2015
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