Onondaga County lawmakers discuss term limits at a legislature meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. Credit: Laura Robertson | Central Current

The Onondaga County Legislature voted on Tuesday to authorize itself to pursue litigation against the Board of Elections. 

The vote was split 10-7, mostly along party lines. Democrat Charles Garland voted with Republicans against the measure, while Republican Ken Bush sided with the Democrats. 

The decision does not require the legislature to pursue litigation. However, the legislature is likely to go to court to answer quetions around the proper procedure to put a referendum on the ballot. 

“We cannot just let a democracy question lie open,” said Legislature Chair Nicole Watts. 

The controversy started in July, when County Executive Ryan McMahon accidentally signed a bill adopting a local law that would send term limits on his own position, and that of the county comptroller, to referendum. He later attempted to veto that law. 

The legislature clerks brought the adopted law to the Board of Elections. But one elections commissioner, Kevin Ryan, said he could not put the law on the ballot while knowing that the executive had intended to veto it. 

Legislature Democrats contend that Ryan’s actions bring up questions that go beyond the term limits debate. 

“Yes, a mistake was made,” said Legislator Maurice “Mo” Brown. “However, we don’t get to break the law to overturn that mistake.” 

Brown said that just as the legislature’s “only option” was to transmit the signed adoption to the BOE, the elections commissioner’s only option was to place the law on the ballot. 

While the length of term limits was not worth fighting for, Brown said, “whether or not one elections commissioner can, of their own volition, change the law — that is definitely worth fighting for.” 

Republicans in both the legislative and executive branches have made multiple attempts to offer off-ramps that address the term limits question without requiring the county to go to court to address the procedural questions at the board of elections. 

McMahon previously proposed a solution which would send referendums on both three- and four-term limits to the ballot in 2027. His office called it a “workable compromise that could have resolved this matter without further conflict or expense.” So far, no legislators have brought a law reflecting McMahon’s proposal to the floor. 

Shortly before the session, Legislator Cody Kelly sponsored a new local law which would allow the legislature to create three-term limits on the two positions without sending them to referendum. That means they would not be on the ballot. 

Kelly said that in an ideal world, he would have liked to give voters the chance to decide, but the deadline to put them on the ballot in 2026 had already passed. 

He said that as long as term limits were created, putting them on the ballot or not was “inside baseball.” The legislature had seen that voters supported term limits both in conversation and in the overwhelming support last year for legislature term limits, Kelly said. 

All seven legislators who voted against authorizing litigation have signed on to cosponsor Kelly’s local law. It will come before the legislature to be voted on in early September. 

Ballots need to be printed in mid-September so they can reach long-distance absentee voters, like overseas military members, in time for the election, said Watts. She anticipated that a judge would likely expedite any potential litigation to account for that. 

Kelly said that he had not talked to McMahon in advance about whether he would sign the local law, but McMahon’s proposed solution demonstrated a level of comfort with term limits. Minority Leader Brian May said the legislature had contacted McMahon to give him a heads up about their proposal shortly before they announced it, but did not have extended conversations.

“We’re just looking for a bipartisan solution here,” said Kelly. 

Majority Leader Nodesia Hernandez said that the legislature had met twice in the previous week and that she wished she had heard Kelly’s proposal earlier. The authorization will give the legislature more tools while they continue to discuss what comes next and learn new information, she said. 

Watts said that the proposed solutions she had seen — from McMahon and Republican legislators — only addressed putting term limits in place. However, each would leave questions about the precedent of either allowing McMahon to rescind his adoption or of Ryan rejecting a measure meant to be placed on a ballot.

Legislator Gregg Eriksen said that administrative and ministerial actions should be taken without adding personal opinion or context. 

He compared it to the case of Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who stopped signing marriage licenses so she would not have to provide them to same-sex couples. She “got into a fair amount of legal hot water over that,” Eriksen said. 

“There is one person who can most easily clarify this. One person who can easily end this and solve this situation,” said Eriksen, “and that person is the Republican elections commissioner, who I believe is free to change his mind at any time and then put this on the ballot.” 

Justin Sayles, a spokesperson for McMahon, said in a statement the vote authorized “frivolous litigation that could cost Onondaga County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” and that McMahon would remain focused on community-benefit programs like lowering costs and expanding access to early childhood programs. 


All legislators have expressed exhaustion over the discussion, and a reluctance to spend taxpayer money on expensive litigation.

Kelly and May both hoped to soon redirect focus to the budget cycle, which will begin next month. 

Brown, Watts, Hernandez and Garland have all in the past said they would rather spend taxpayer money on other programs to benefit the community. 

“Do we want to go to court? No. We want to have these conversations and come to some kind of resolution,” said Hernandez. “Do we have to go to court? Probably, yes, because we’re being told the solution is either not letting the voters vote or either going to court and letting the judge decide.”

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Laura Robertson is a staff reporter covering Onondaga County. Prior to joining Central Current, she lived on the edge of the Bering Strait in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a reporter for a year. She...