Back to the Future

With the recent discussion over whether Sharon Runner might try to rejoin the Senate in a special election, I decided to take a quick look at the history of legislators serving non-consecutive terms in the same house.

4 non-consecutive terms

Only three legislators have ever served four separate times in a single house of the California Legislature. Two did it in the Assembly (John H. Matthews and Cyrus Coleman) and one in the State Senator (E. H. Heacock). (Coleman is the most recent, having been elected to his final term in 1894).

3 non-consecutive terms

This is slightly more common, with a total of seventeen people having done it between the two houses. Of the seventeen, fifteen were in the Assembly and two in the Senate (the most recent person to do it was Maurice Browne, elected for the last time in 1869).

2 non-consecutive terms

Legislators serving two non-consecutive terms is even more common, with 226 legislators having done it. Of the 33 to have done it in the Senate, only two have been in the past 50 years, most recently with the currently-serving Jim Nielsen. In the Assembly, the legislators who have done this include Gil Cedillo, Tom Torlakson, and murder victim Alexander P. Crittenden. In fact, Mount Conness, the City of Barstow, the mineral Colemanite were all named after Assemblymembers who served two non-consecutive terms.