The accession of JD Spain, Sr., to the County Board on Wednesday (Jan. 1) marks the first time in nearly 45 years that the seat changed hands via a general, rather than special, election.
Spain’s three immediate predecessors in the seat — Libby Garvey, Barbara Favola and James Hunter III — each came to office via a special election after their predecessors resigned:
- Garvey was elected in March 2012 after Favola had been elected to the Virginia Senate.
- Favola had been elected in November 1997 after James Hunter resigned due to ill health. (Hunter died in early 1998.)
- Hunter had come to the position in May 1990 after John Milliken resigned following his appointment as Virginia’s secretary of transportation.
Milliken’s initial victory of 1980 was the last time the seat turned over in a general election, according to county election documents. He defeated Republican-backed independent “Sim” Pace.
Milliken’s five immediate predecessors each also obtained the seat via a general election: John Purdy in 1972, A. Leslie Phillips in 1968, Thomas Richards in 1960, Lucas Blevins in 1956 and George Rowzee Jr. in 1952.
However one makes it to the job, Spain said at his Dec. 14 swearing-in ceremony, running for elected office is not for the faint of heart. Or those unwilling to put in the effort.
“In this line of work, no one’s going to give you anything,” he said. “You have to get out in this community of 240,000 folks, meet with them, meet them where they are.”
And for the five-member Board to function effectively, its members need to focus beyond themselves and for the greater good, Spain said.
“We can all work together in peace and harmony so Arlington can continue to thrive,” he said of the 2025 board.
The Dec. 14 ceremony for Spain, a Democrat who fended off three opponents in the Nov. 5 election, was ceremonial in nature, since his first day on the job was then still two weeks away.
It was Spain’s second bid for County Board, having fallen short in the 2023 Democratic primary.
Spain, a former president of the Arlington NAACP and retired U.S. Marine, also unsuccessfully made a primary run for House of Delegates in 2019, when his quest to unseat Del. Alfonso Lopez failed.
Despite those two misfires, confidence was not lacking as Spain embarked on a new run in 2024.
“I knew that I could be here,” he said at the swearing-in ceremony, held in the room where Board members conduct their business.
While Arlington’s current governance traces its roots to the first County Board election in 1932, something that transpired two decades later makes it almost impossible to trace the direct lineage of each of the five seats all the way back to their origins 92 years ago.
The 1953 County Board saw a number of new faces, as the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals a year earlier had ruled that not just Arlington board members, but all local and state officials across the commonwealth, could not simultaneously hold office and be employed by the federal government.
The ruling in Dean v. Paolicelli upheld a Circuit Court decision by the legendary Judge Walter McCarthy, who had relied on a 1788 Virginia law to decide the matter.
The board members in question opted to resign from local office instead of quitting their federal posts.
State law later was changed to allow local elected officials to be employed simultaneously by the federal government, although the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from being nominated by a political party when running for office.
For decades until 2016, Arlington’s elected leadership held a New Year’s Day morning meeting, in which Board members laid out their visions for the coming year and formally selected a chair and vice chair.
The Jan. 1 date of the event has gone by the wayside, but Board members still conduct an organizational meeting, this year to be held this Monday, Jan. 6 at 6 p.m. The first working meeting of the year is slated for Saturday, Jan. 25.
