I was never a fan of term limits in the first place, since the idea of democratic voting put the ultimate term limit in the hands of voters - if you want to send a politician packing, you vote them out of office. However, voters decided
twice that New York City politicians would be limited to two terms as Mayor and three terms in the City Council. This pleased few politicians since it meant that they would not have a lifetime job and would either have to give up politics or run for a higher office, often bumping into still other lifetime politicians at the state level, including Assemblymen or US Congressmen.
Now, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is agitating to dump the term limits law so he can run for a third term. He was hoping to circumvent the process that established the law in the first place - a municipal referendum that required voters to approve the change. He's since gotten the support of Ron Lauder,
who helped bankroll the term limits referendum in the first place:
The Post first reported yesterday on the push for "Mike The III" in a story yesterday revealing that chief term-limits supporter Ron Lauder had decided to back another four years for Bloomberg and that the mayor had told aides he intended to go for it. If he pulls it off, Bloomberg would become only the fourth mayor to serve three terms in the last century - following in the footsteps of Fiorello La Guardia, Robert Wagner and Ed Koch.
Bloomberg got a huge boost when Lauder - who bankrolled the 1993 voter initiative that imposed term limits - told The Post yesterday he endorsed temporarily extending the limits to 12 years from eight.
The changes, which would affect all citywide officeholders, borough president and City Council members, will be undertaken by a revision to the 15-year-old city law, not through a public referendum, sources said.
Sources said Bloomberg will announce tomorrow that he wants to run because of his concerns for the city's welfare amid the meltdown in the New York-dominated financial services industry.
Bloomberg is a former Wall Street trader and founder of the successful financial services firm in his name - and he has a vote of confidence from the city's business community.
Top off this scheme with the fact that it would only apply to those who are already in office, and not repeal the law entirely. In other words, he's basically hoping to
write the law to exempt himself and the already seated City Council.
People briefed on the matter said Mr. Bloomberg, 66, would seek to change the law through legislation in the City Council. His staff is envisioning an unusual bill that would apply only to those currently in office, allowing them to serve three terms instead of two. A permanent change would require voter approval, these people said.
Mr. Bloomberg’s strategy carries significant political risk. Several polls, conducted over the last few months, show widespread support for keeping the law in place. City voters passed term limits by overwhelming margins in 1993, and reaffirmed their support in 1996.
“A backdoor deal undermines the will of New Yorkers,” said the New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., who plans to run for mayor next year. “Democracy,” he added, “is bigger than any one person.”
The people who are supporting this plan are those who would most benefit from it - the politicians who are seated in the City Council and the Mayor. Some business interests also support the deal, likely because they have cultivated close relationships with those members of the Council and would have to begin anew once term limits send those members packing.
Bloomberg thinks that he's best suited to address the city's problems in the face of a financial crisis on Wall Street, but I beg to differ.
Bloomberg's first instinct is to raise taxes and fees, and has done little in the way of reducing the out of control spending by the City. He's consistently sought to impose massive new taxes such as the congestion pricing scheme, which he hoped to use to fund mass transit projects. While the idea of improving mass transit is a sound one, taxing those businesses and individuals who rely on vehicle traffic to enter the City would only further increase the costs of doing business and result in lower revenues on other taxes already imposed and do nothing but increase the costs of doing business in one of the most heavily taxed jurisdictions in the nation.
Raising taxes at a time when the City's financial sector is hurting is a recipe for disaster given that many of these businesses are looking at consolidation and would likely move elsewhere - to New Jersey for example - rather than stay in the City. The City would then have to provide still more financial incentives and tax breaks to these companies to stay, rather than lose those businesses that remain.
Bloomberg hopes to extend mayoral control over the education department, which is a good idea, but the teacher's union has clear ideas on how to wrestle control for themselves, which does nothing to actually improve student learning.
Rep. Anthony Weiner has already suggested that he would run for Mayor should Bloomberg get a chance to run again. Others suggesting that they are running include Gristede's supermarket owner John Castamatides, NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Thompson and Quinn would be forced from office via term limits. Thompson is opposed to Bloomberg's plan to dump the term limits.
The Daily News' Juan Gonzales isn't a fan of Bloomberg's plans either, but Bloomberg has support of a majority of City Council members so that the passage of such a law is all but guaranteed. That's not much of a surprise given that 2/3 of the Council would be ousted on term limits in 2009.
