About an hour and a half after polling places closed in Skokie in the Nov. 5 election, unofficial Cook County results showed voters approved a binding referendum for a three-term term limit for the village of Skokie’s elected offices of mayor, village clerk, at-large trustee and district trustee.
With 95% of the votes counted, The Cook County Clerk’s website showed the results for the referendum question had 19,164 “yes” votes and 3,718 “no” votes. The “yes” votes had a 67.5% majority.
The referendum question asked Skokie voters if they would want a three-term term limit for village elected positions of mayor, clerk, at-large and district trustee. Each term is four years. Because Skokie also recently adopted changes to the village’s election code via three referendum questions, the term limits will begin for mayor, clerk and at-large trustees when elected in 2025, and for district trustees when they are elected in 2027.
The village board approved adding the referendum question to the ballot in July on a 4-2 vote. Mayor George Van Dusen said he and Trustee Alison Pure Slovin had been discussing term limits, and he was also aware of resident-led petitions to put term limits and ranked choice voting on the ballot for 2025.
Van Dusen, who has been mayor of Skokie since 1999, said he personally was not in favor of term limits. “I think you lose something as well with that more turnover, but I think people should be able to vote on it and make up their own minds,” he said back in May.
However, Van Dusen’s yes vote on the village board was the deciding vote in adding the referendum question to the ballot.
James Johnson, who plans to run for Skokie clerk in the spring 2025 election and petitioned for ranked-choice voting and term limits to be on the ballot said in a prepared statement, “I started this term limits referendum as part of my campaign for village clerk, and I was excited when the Village Board placed it on our November ballot. This is another great achievement for local electoral reform. And next April, I hope Skokie voters keep the momentum going with a ‘yes’ for ranked choice voting!”
Johnson, however, refused to cooperate with the village board to put the referendum question on the November ballot after the board rejected adding a referendum question on ranked choice voting on the ballot, which he called voter interference. “I want no part of this,” Johnson said at the time, abstaining from the vote for term limits.
