2025 is a big election year in Virginia, which is one of two states that has odd year elections. Lawmakers are about to consider the future of this odd tradition.
For many years, Virginia held elections every year. Members of the original House of Delegates served one-year terms, and voters went to the polls year after year. But all of that that ended up being too many elections and too much government.
"Legislatures were under the suspicion as being under the control of big business interests in Virginia; it was certainly the railroads that were thought to control the legislature," says John Milliken at George Mason University on the politics of the 1850s. "So, there was a move to constrain or confine how much damage a legislature could actually accomplish."
That’s why a new state Constitution in 1850 restricted how often the General Assembly could meet – limiting it to meet every other year instead of every year.
"And the first year beginning that process was 1851; an odd-numbered year," Milliken says.
Now, 175 years later, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell says it might be time to reconsider that timing and possibly move to even year elections.
"I think the plusses probably outweigh the minuses, but I'd like to have a conversation and hear other people's opinions about it."
He says he plans on introducing a bill to study the issue and hear opinions about the possibility of saying goodbye to an odd tradition that dates back to 1851.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
