Was there ever a man who served as governor of several different states?
Posted by thattmarion25@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 51 comments
To clarify the question, let's imagine a person who served two terms as governor of California from 2000 to 2008 and then decided not to retire but to continue serving as governor, but in another state, say Georgia. Thus, he served as governor of multiple states (California and Georgia).
SamsquanchHunter23@reddit
Sam Houston: Texas and Tennessee. Also, he was the president of Texas.
JoeyAaron@reddit
Francis Pierpont is known as the Father of West Virginia. He was elected Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia, which had control over the northwestern part of Virginia at the begining of the Civil War. When the state of West VIrginia was formally created, Mr. Pierpont remained Governor of the Restored Government of Virginia rather than becoming the first official Governor of West Virginia, although the Restored Government now controlled almost no actual territory and was turned into a figurehead position. After the Civil War Mr. Pierpont became the actual Governor of Virginia during Reconstruction. He was never technically the Governor of West Virginia, but unofficially he was the first governor of West Virginia.
appleparkfive@reddit
Didn't know a lot of this. Thanks!
spitfire451@reddit
The president of Delaware was renamed to be the governor. Same office. I think that counts, don't you?
TheCrazyBlacksmith@reddit
Well, as a Delawarean, I can tell you that we most certainly no longer have a president, but we do have a governor.
zeroentanglements@reddit
Not exactly what your question was, but Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts and later one of the two Senators for Utah.
OhThrowed@reddit
And now he's retiring, rather then dying in office.
wooper346@reddit
I'm not convinced he would have retired if he and everyone else knew he was safe from a primary challenge.
OhThrowed@reddit
Meh, considering our governor had to get signatures to be on the ballot because the convention tried to replace him... who knows.
wooper346@reddit
No way Romney would have survived the convention ballot, I think that's a guarantee. I'm not sure he could have gotten the signatures.
A GOP Senator voting not once, but twice to convict Trump in a state as red as Utah is pretty much a dead man walking, even if Utah's electorate has a reputation of being slightly moderate.
LetsGetRowdyRowdy@reddit
His ideological successor still won the primary, despite losing at the convention. The people of Utah are a lot more moderate relative to the MAGA-controlled party
OhThrowed@reddit
Honestly? I disagree. I'm not saying he'd have been a shoo in for re-election. But a lot of us like him and would have voted for him again. I don't think it's as clear cut as him being a dead man walking.
TheOldBooks@reddit
Didn't the more Romney alligned candidate beat the Trump aligned one in the primary to replace him?
Catsnpotatoes@reddit
His dad was also governor of Michigan
itsmeonmobile@reddit
Why do Seattleites know so much about Mitt Romney? Hahaha
Catsnpotatoes@reddit
Lmao I think it's because he is a fellow tree enjoyer
https://www.thecut.com/2019/06/i-think-about-this-a-lot-mitt-romney-and-michigans-trees.html
zeroentanglements@reddit
And his dad was technically Mexican
eyetracker@reddit
Most notably Sam Houston, also legislator in 2 states and president of a country.
AKDude79@reddit
He was never president of the Confederacy. The only CSA president was Jefferson Davis.
eyetracker@reddit
Correct, but he was the president of the Republic of Texas twice.
johndoenumber2@reddit
And he pronounced his name like the street in Manhattan: House-ton, not Hyoos-ton.
Unable-Economist-525@reddit
Houston is a Scots name, after Hugh (Ouisdian in Gaelic) McDonald of Sleat. Hugh, not “How”.
iamcarlgauss@reddit
You sure about that? Wikipedia says otherwise, and Houston St in NYC is named after William Houstoun.
johndoenumber2@reddit
Pronunciation, not namesake
iamcarlgauss@reddit
Right, but I can't find anything that says Sam Houston pronounced his named "house-ton", and several sources that say it was pronounced like the current city in Texas. Wikipedia lists it as /ˈhjuːstən/. William Houstoun pronounced his named "house-ton" on the other hand.
cryptoengineer@reddit
The wrong pronunciation is a sure sign of an out-of-towner.
PacSan300@reddit
Whoa, TIL. How did the city get to be pronounced as the latter, then?
jppitre@reddit
The guy is probably just talking out of his ass
newworldman86@reddit
Funny thing is in Georgia I have always heard Houston country pronounced the same way as the street in Manhattan. So I doubt it’s a northern vs southern accent at cause.
Steamsagoodham@reddit
He also could have been a politician under a third country, but he rightfully refused to swear allegiance to the CSA so they removed him as governor.
amd2800barton@reddit
That’s only if you accept that the CSA was ever a country, and not a part of another country but in open rebellion. The confederacy never achieved meaningful international recognition. Neither Britain nor France recognized the CSA, and kept their embassies in Washington with ambassadors only to the Union. Similar to how nobody outside of the Russo-sphere considered Luhansk or Donetsk to be independent republics - just parts of the Donbas in Ukraine who were in open rebellion with the aid of neighboring Russia. Unless this war ends with a peace deal that grants them to Russia, they’ll just be considered to have been in rebellion, not a sovereign nation. Same goes for the Confederacy during the Civil War. They may have acted like a nation, but because they never really achieved independence, and ultimately lost the war - it’s a failed rebellion, not an extinct country.
theoriginalcafl@reddit
He was also governor of those two states (Texas and Tennessee)
AKDude79@reddit
Sam Houston is the only man ever to be governor of two different states (Texas and Tennessee).
Conchobair@reddit
James Shields was a Senator for 3 different states (IL, MN, MO). He has a very interesting history. He almost fought a duel against Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln was trolling him in the local papers while pretending to be a woman. Also, the only person to defeat Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War, but the resulting promotion was denied by the President at the time.
TrevorBoreance@reddit
Then he got traded for Fernando Tatis Jr. and that's all anyone remembers him for
smheath@reddit
William Tryon was governor of both North Carolina and New York when they were colonies.
Zama202@reddit
I think the principal reason that exact situation has never happened. Is that within the United States system there is still a bit of state loyalty/identity. politician, who is served as governor of another state could easily be seen, even today, as not having sufficient knowledge or familiarity with the state they were seeking office in.
panda3096@reddit
I doubt OPs exact scenario could ever happen anyway. I'm not aware of any state that doesn't have some sort of residency requirement before being allowed to run for public office for exactly this reason: you have to understand the state before you can serve it. The spirit of it has happened as many others have pointed out, but it was still 9 years before Houston took an office in Texas and that was really an altogether different situation being the 1800s and Texas not being a state at first.
Modern day? Really rare even after meeting residency requirements as you've said. I doubt anyone could manage more than 2 states.
sgtm7@reddit
I was curious, so I did a search. The most common residency requirement is 5 years, but some are as much as 7 years. There are a few that have one year, and a few with two years. Five have no length of residency requirement at all. https://ballotpedia.org/Qualifications_for_governor_in_each_state So, I don't think the residency requirement would really be a hurdle. The hurdle would be people being willing to vote for someone they don't consider as really being "one of theirs".
panda3096@reddit
Absolutely fascinating, though one would assume the states that require you to be a "qualified elector" of the state is de facto requiring citizenship, as you would assume you have to be a citizen of the state to vote in it. But clearly my assumptions are already generous given Kansas and Connecticut not giving an actual residency requirement. Extra surprised that Kansas doesn't have requirements in their Constitution at all
Jakebob70@reddit
There's no such thing as "state citizenship", closest thing would be residency, which you can re-establish. So hypothetically, Mitt Romney could move to Michigan for example, establish residency, and run for governor.
panda3096@reddit
You're right, I used citizen and citizenship instead of resident and residency, which I meant to use but alas I'm on mobile and can't fix it so we're all stuck with my crimes.
And people can and do change residency all the time, which none of us are disagreeing with. It's more the culture in the US now that we think it's much harder to do now.
theoriginalcafl@reddit
This situation has happened. Sam Houston was a governor of two states and a senator of two states. The reason he got loyalty is he moved to Texas and helped them in the revolution.
10tonheadofwetsand@reddit
This has happened (Sam Houston) and other variations are currently happening, such as Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts and Senator from Utah, or Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas and Governor of Gliese 667Cc.
BankManager69420@reddit
A lot of the early territorial governors served in multiple states.
lucash7@reddit
I mean...I think my state has had some governors who were more than likely also in charge of the state of denial....but, none from my state that I am aware of.
Bike_Chain_96@reddit
Just had one like that, yeah!
jcstan05@reddit
Sam Houston, as others have mentioned, plus...
William H. McGuffey: He was the governor of Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1823 and later served as the governor of North Carolina from 1823 to 1825.
Also John C. Breckinridge, who was governor of Kentucky and the Confederate state of Kentucky. Does that count?
TillPsychological351@reddit
I think Sam Houston is the only answer, served as governor of Tennessee and later Texas. Interestingly, he didn't finished his term in either, he resigned from the office in Tennessee and was forced out in Texas after refusing to pledge allegiance to the Confederacy.
JimBones31@reddit
Sam Houston
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