07/05/12: A costly oops for Portsmouth

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

WE DON’T have elections on the first Tuesday in June.

Nevertheless, Portsmouth’s charter refers to the fictional date. And because it does, three candidates who had planned to run for the City Council in November are not permitted to be on the ballot. Two of the three, Elizabeth Psimas and Paul A. Smith, have filed suit. They are represented by a current member of council, Steve Heretick.

Good for them.

Anyone reading the Portsmouth charter knows that somebody goofed in including language that requires the petitions to be submitted “not later than the time fixed for the closing of the polls on the first Tuesday in June of the year of the election.”

Because we don’t have elections on the first Tuesday in June.

The Code of Virginia is quite clear. Section 24.2-507 lays out the petition due dates. Right there in item 1 it says, “For a general election in November, by 7:00 p.m. on the second Tuesday in June.” Portsmouth is having a general election in November, so the due date should have been the second Tuesday in June.

Seems that whoever made the change to the charter just changed the month. Portsmouth used to have elections in May, and according to item 2 in that same code section, the petition deadline for May elections is the first Tuesday in March.

Right month, wrong Tuesday. Oops.

That’s what happens when you have nearly 3,000 bills before the General Assembly.

According to Richmond Sunlight, 2,969 bills were introduced in the 2011 legislative session, the one in which the legislature considered the Portsmouth charter changes.

Odd-numbered year sessions of the General Assembly are convened for just 30 days but generally are extended for another 16 days. Odd-numbered years are also election years, and 2011 saw the entire legislature up for election.

No wonder somebody missed the date change. Too much to do in such a brief period of time.

Of course, the legislature could cut down on its workload by loosening the Dillon Rule. Why, exactly, should a city have to go, hat in hand, to Richmond to change its charter in the first place? Are city leaders any more capable of screwing it up than Richmond?

To add insult to injury, this particular charter change is one that Richmond encouraged.

In 2002, the legislature passed a bill that gave localities the option to hold their local elections in November. Localities are having to pick up the cost of these elections, making the move to November in these difficult budget times low-hanging fruit. It would have been far easier for the legislation to have included the ability of localities to adopt it without asking permission.

Had they done so, Portsmouth could just fix the mistake. As it stands, save the court challenge, the city will have to wait for the next legislative session, beginning in January.

Maintaining control of the localities is deemed far more important than making the process easier.

Hopefully, the judge hearing the suit will have the common sense to correct the error. Because we don’t have elections on the first Tuesday in June.