Fresh news from Rockville, MD as the Committee for Better Government delivered 12,139 signatures to the County Executive’s office so that a question can be placed on the November, 2024 ballot to limit the number of consecutive four-year terms that the Montgomery County Executive may hold.
The group remarked that this is the first of what will be three deliveries of ballot petition signature submissions. 10,000 valid voter signatures are required to change three words in the current County Charter to limit the County Executives to two terms.
“This was a team effort with many large and small contributions including people knocking on doors, attending County events, talking to their neighbors, and standing outside of stores to get signatures…and we are not done yet.” stated Reardon Sullivan, a founder of the Committee for Better Government.
“When we checked the signatures against the available Board of Election voter rolls and were happy to see that the majority of the petition signers were Democrats and Independents from all areas of the County who understand the importance of term limits. If passed, this change to the County Charter will ensure no Montgomery County Executive serves more terms than the US President or the Maryland Governor.”
CleanSlateMoCo Parody’s team then caught up with Marc Elrich, the career politician and current Montgomery County Exec (now in his sixth year) who served a whopping 12 years on the County Council and before that, more then 15 years on the Takoma Park City (population: 16,000) Council, to get his response.
In between noshes of dim sum (the County Exec says he’s addicted to it since returning from communist China on a “trade” and business mission), Elrich made his feelings known.
“I mean, I just don’t believe in term limits. Public service for 70 years has always been my goal. If you look at the history of Montgomery County, we’ve always been a progressive county, and that means having a king, or a king-like person who reigns for 50 years or more and basically issues edicts on what you’ll do and how you will live. I just don’t understand why the tax paying serfs would want to restrict such power and prestige. It really saddens me that someone thinks eight years is long enough to socially engineer society into a socialist utopia. I think we are just too short-sited as a people.”
Mr. Elrich then proceeded to warn about the dangers of “democracy ending” if term limits were passed by a majority of the voters in Montgomery County.
YES THIS POST IS PARODY (well, Marc Elrich’s part anyway — the ballot petition signatures and delivery of them for a November ballot question are 100% real) — Stay tuned for the next CleanSlateMoCo Onion edition storyline.
