John Mirisch, a longtime presence on the Beverly Hills City Council since his initial election in 2009, is launching a combined legal and electoral push against term limits in his pursuit of a fifth term for the June 2026 ballot. This move follows the 2022 voter approval of Measure TL, which restricts council terms to three or a maximum of 12 years, yet Mirisch maintains that the rule's "prospective only" provision excludes his earlier terms, permitting him to seek office anew without counting prior years.
The 2012 opinion from then-Attorney General Kamala D. Harris (Opinion No. 11-401, issued July 13, 2012) directly addresses the application of local initiative term-limit ordinances under Government Code section 36502(b), which mandates that such measures "apply prospectively only." This means they cannot retroactively count or penalize terms served before the ordinance's effective date, as doing so would alter the legal effects of past service and potentially deprive officials of rightfully held offices. Given that Mirisch's initial four terms predate or straddle the rule's adoption, he asserts eligibility, positioning his campaign as an examination of the law's scope versus its explicit terms.
Mirisch's record in Beverly Hills governance includes wins in 2009, 2013, 2017, and 2022. He has taken the mayor's seat three times, in 2013, 2016, and 2019, and served as vice mayor on several occasions, most recently in 2025. As the first Swedish national on the council, holding dual Swedish-American citizenship, he has also led the Los Angeles County City Selection Committee since his 2023 election to the chair, a position he kept in 2025. Outside local duties, he acts as chief policy officer for the Israeli-American Civic Action Network and joined the Action on Smoking and Health board of trustees in 2020 to advance health initiatives.
Key moments from his council service feature active roles in land use disputes, like his 2017 comments as mayor on balancing development pressures and his isolated no vote in 2021 on a large-scale condo-hotel proposal from Cain International, stressing the importance of public input on big projects. He encountered questions in 2016 regarding potential lobbying connections tied to a major development contest, though no confirmed breaches emerged. On health fronts, he resisted elective medical procedures during the 2025 COVID-19 phase and participated in a 2025 federal legal action against immigration enforcement alongside other regional municipalities. In 2025, he cast the sole vote against the city's participation in an ACLU-backed civil rights case, expressing worries about inconsistent protection for Jewish and Israeli-American groups amid increasing bias incidents.
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