Talk:James White (New Mexico politician)

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Emk9 in topic Senate term end date

Senate term end date edit

Ballotpedia's "When state legislators assume office after a general election" article might not clear up the question of when White 'left office'. His term expired at the end of 2020 but his successor won't be sworn in until this Tuesday. There's several states whose legislative term dates start before the legislators take the oath of office. That being said, I did mess up by trying to set White's Senate term-start date as 2017 as I forgot to check this page which said he was appointed in 2016. Going to link Emk9 on this post since he reverted the update on Deaths in 2021. I'm sure there's precedents on other pages that would prove useful on how to handle this page and the Deaths in 2021 entry for White. --RobbieFal (talk) 08:05, 17 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@RobbieFal: I think using his date of death as the end of his term makes the most sense for a few reasons. First, it would be very strange to refer to incumbents as "former" senators for the few weeks between terms, and for wikipedia purposes seems very impractical to separate the terms for someone like Stuart Ingle, who was served since 1984, into 10 separate terms of service, with most of them listing himself as the predecessor and successor. Secondly, this [1] document from the New Mexico legislature, dated January 11, 2021, still includes White, which I feel like it wouldn't do if his term had actually expired on the 31st. Emk9 (talk) 08:21, 17 January 2021 (UTC)Reply