Fresno City Hall, at 2600 Fresno St., is seen on March 3, 2021.
JOHN WALKER
The Fresno Bee
Political science experts say an eleventh-hour proposal to change Fresno mayoral and councilmember term limits appears to be “self-serving” and should have been presented to the public months ago.
On Monday, Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza introduced a resolution that would ask voters to change the city charter to allow the mayor and councilmembers to serve up to three consecutive terms, or a total of 12 years. According to the city charter, a mayor or councilmember can currently serve two successive terms, then must take a break for one full term before they are eligible to run again. There is currently no cap on total years served.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, a co-sponsor of the resolution, said he’d seek a third term as mayor if voters approve the proposed ballot measure in November.
“I believe it will add stability to our local government, and will also allow the momentum that we’ve built to be sustained,” Dyer said Monday. He said it took him three years to “feel comfortable” in his role as mayor, and the job takes time to build a team and momentum.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer answers questions about the Southeast Development Area or SEDA during an interview at Fresno City Hall on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com
Three political scientists and one ethics and transparency expert told The Bee that there are valid reasons to consider changing term limits, and that no one size fits all. But they criticized the timing and approach of Fresno’s proposal.
“It’s clearly a self-interested measure,” said Jeffrey Cummins, a Fresno State expert on politics and local government. “The critics often say it’s a power grab. It is a power grab. It’s trying to stay in office longer.”
There are few publics details on how and when this proposal came about. Monday’s announcement was the first the idea has been presented to the public. There’s no staff report or analysis included for this proposal on the city council agenda. Esparza defended the 72-hour public notice and said the proposal is in compliance with the Brown Act, the state’s public meeting law.
Officials said in Monday’s press conference that the new proposed term limits would combat the “loophole” where “lifetime politicians” can in theory cycle in and out of office. The Fresno City Council will vote Thursday to place the proposed charter change on the Nov. 3 ballot. Election items need to be presented to the Fresno County Clerk by the Aug. 7 deadline and Thursday is the last regularly scheduled city council meeting before that date.
Cummins said he doesn’t have an issue with the idea of three consecutive terms. But, he said, if the proponents of the charter change — Esparza and Dyer — were interested in reform and improving the long-term outlook of the city, they could have put together a commission to study the issue with experts months ago.
“It’s something that should have been in public discourse for at least several months before the Council was going to consider it,” Cummins said.
David McCuan, a political science expert at Sonoma State, agreed, saying the proposed charter amendment “is clearly something that is self-serving and self-interested.”
“This has easily been in the wind and on the minds of these individuals for some time,” McCuan said.
He said it appeared to be a “faux” (fake in French) reform that lacked a deliberative process.
“That’s reckless because you’re taking the potential positives of reform and jamming it through — which doesn’t reek of transparency and accountability,” he said.
McCuan also disagreed with Dyer’s argument that the third term is a way to provide a certain level of experience because the job comes with a learning curve. Those are standard arguments typically used against term limits, McCuan said.
“There’s a very technical term for this in political science: ‘It’s called bulls—,’” McCuan said.
Fresno City Council President Nelson Esparza is joined by Mayor Jerry Dyer, councilmember Mike Karbassi, City Manager Georgeanne White and other city leaders in announcing a proposed half-cent sales tax to replace Measure C. CRAIG KOHLRUSS ckohlruss@fresnobee.com Pros and cons of term limits
There is debate about term limits in general, and rules can vary greatly across the country and state by state, Naomi Bick, an expert on local government at Fresno State, said.
“It was pretty common to have what like Fresno has, where they have that gap, the non-sequential terms,” Bick said. “We have seen some of these big cities changing that as well.”
Term limits allow for elections to be more competitive, limit influence from outside actors, promotes diversity and fresh ideas, and discourage career politicians, Bick said.
“Here in California, people like term limits,” Bick said. “But there has been some research that shows term limits can actually increase the amount of special influence in politics.”
The argument for allowing mayors— especially strong mayors in particular— to stay on longer is that they do get to accomplish more and take on larger projects, especially since policy change is a slow process, Bick said.
Still, she said it was “pretty quick” to propose the change just days before Council would vote on it.
Robin Chiero, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Fresno, a nonpartisan organization that encourages civic engagement, said in a statement to The Bee that it “has a long-standing position that the Mayor and City council should not be subject to term limits because they inhibit a voter’s choice to re-elect an incumbent beyond a specified number of terms, should they wish to.”
However, Chiero said the proposal to change the term limits so close to the deadline “provides little time for comments.”
Sean McMorris, a program manager for transparency, ethics and accountability for Common Cause, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog group, said “our position is term limits are healthy for democracy.”
Ballots are placed into a collection box by election workers outside the Fresno County Clerk/Election office Tuesday, June 2, 2026 in downtown Fresno. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com Term limits in other large CA cities?Los Angeles: councilmembers can serve three four-year terms, but the mayor can only serve two.San Francisco: in June voters approved a measure capping San Francisco mayors and members of the Board of Supervisors officials at two consecutive four-year terms; San Francisco has a city-county government structureSan Jose: mayor and councilmembers can serve two successive four-year terms, and must take a break before running againSacramento: four-year terms, no limit on number of termsOakland: No person shall be elected to the office of Mayor for more than two consecutive terms; three four-year term limits for councilmembersRiverside: mayor, councilmembers serve four-year terms, no limit on number of terms
This story was originally published July 29, 2026 at 6:41 AM.
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Melissa Montalvo is The Fresno Bee’s accountability reporter. Prior to this role, she covered Latino communities for The Fresno Bee as the part of the Central Valley News Collaborative. She also reported on labor, economy and poverty through newsroom partnerships between The Fresno Bee, Fresnoland and CalMatters as a Report for America Corps member.