Elrich prepares for the fight against term limits

By Adam Pagnucco.

Now that a reduction in county executive terms from three to two is on the ballot, County Executive Marc Elrich is gearing up for a fight. And with the opposing side backed by real estate money, a full-scale election battle is likely to happen sooner rather than later.

Let's connect the dots. First, Elrich spoke about term limits on Kojo Nnamdi's “Politics Hour” on August 30. What follows is a transcript of the discussion between Elrich, Nnamdi and longtime regional reporter Tom Sherwood.

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Sherwood: You're in your second term. You won in 2022, narrowly, I believe, and you expect people to… I believe you said you're going to run for a third term?

Elrich: Yes.

Sherwood: You're on the ballot this year, though, because there's a referendum in Montgomery County that would limit the county executive to two terms. That means if the referendum passes in November, you won't be allowed to run for a third term in 2026. So what are you doing to prevent the referendum if you want to prevent it – I'm assuming you want to – and secondly, if it passes, what's next for you? Would you run for council again, for a non-voting council seat or for an old council…

Nnamdi: I know a primary school that is looking for a teacher, but please go ahead.

Elrich: First of all, we are organizing against the referendum.

Sherwood: What is the main argument against the referendum? Since councillors serve three consecutive terms, why should the council…

Elrich: So we already have term limits. One of the things they did when they were collecting the signatures was we have to limit the executive branch to two terms. A lot of people assumed that there were no term limits for the executive branch. I already have term limits. And I'll be on the ballot in two years. So if they want to beat me, why don't they wait two years and beat me in the election? But the Republicans got less than 25% of the vote. I got about 73, 75% of the vote. So they're not going to beat me, they didn't beat me the first time. The primary was tough…

Sherwood: They claim this is a backdoor way to force you out of office because they couldn't beat you in the election…

Elrich: We had witnesses when people were collecting signatures, and they only talked about me.

Sherwood: Will you launch a campaign against the referendum?

Elrich: Yes, yes.

Sherwood: OK. And again, you hope it doesn't go through, but if it does go through, what… it will affect your future, but also how you approach the next two years as a county commissioner.

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Elrich then moved on to his political agenda, which included his desire to increase taxes on commercial real estate.

Reardon Sullivan (left), chairman of the term limits group, collects voter signatures at the county fair in August 2023.

Moving on to the second point, on September 6, a new election committee called “Oppose Question A: Make Your Vote Count” was formed to oppose the term limit charter change. The chair is Ronald Wright of Silver Spring and the treasurer is Lauri Rodich of Brookeville. Rodich's husband is the former executive director of SEIU Local 500, which represents the support staff in MCPS. I asked Wright and Rodich about their plans for the committee and have not received a response as of this writing.

Third, the teachers union has come out against amending the term limits charter, raising the prospect that opposition to term limits will be on the Apple ballot in November.

Fourth, Elrich has enlisted the help of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC), which has a history of helping with ballot issues. If the MCDCC opposes term limits, that position will be reflected on the county Democrats' sample ballot, which is typically distributed to Democratic voters before the general election.

Add all this up and it looks like a significant effort to fight term limits. Term limits supporters better not go to sleep, because if they do, Elrich might survive.

There is one more point. All of the events described above are recent developments. In fact, Team Elrich has been quietly fighting term limits for months. I have obtained documents documenting some – but certainly not all – of the activities of Elrich's supporters to save him. These documents will be revealed next week!

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