It was not too long ago that Mayor Bloomberg described any potential effort by the City Council to extend or overturn NYC’s term limits law as “disgusting.” Well, things sure have changed. Now Bloomberg is not only supporting the Council changing the law from an eight year limit to twelve, he has become the lead advocate for this “disgusting” attempt to subvert the clearly expressed will of the city electorate.
Council Speaker Quinn, as recently as last December also condemned any effort to change term limits, either by a vote of the Council or by the people. “I am today taking a firm and final position. I will not support the repeal or change of term limits through any mechanism, and I will oppose aggressively any attempt by anyone to make any changes in the term limits law,” Quinn said emphatically, recognizing that the will of the voters should be respected.
But after playing coy for over a week, she finally announced the obvious, that she would support the mayors’ efforts to rewrite the term limits law as they see fit, thereby making herself eligible to serve another term in the council – creating four more years of distance between her and the recent slush fund scandal.
Something must be in the water over at City Hall. Or perhaps the fact that the clock was running out and both Bloomberg and Quinn are only one year away from being just names in political history books had something to do with these seemingly stunning reversals. Many of Quinn’s fellow council members who see slim opportunities for themselves after next year are also all too eager to follow suit.
The original law, which established a limit of two consecutive terms for city officeholders, was passed in 1993 by an overwhelming vote of the people. In 1996 there was a movement to change the limit from two terms to three, and this effort was soundly rejected at the ballot box. Polls taken since, including very recently, show that the people do not regret their two original votes and reaffirm their support for a two-term limit.
Bloomberg, Quinn and others who support extending their terms would have us believe they are making this change not merely out of some deep philosophical belief that three terms are better than two. If that were the rationale they could pass this so that it would apply to the candidates elected in 2009. Or wait for a 2009 referendum and let the voters decide once again.
Instead they are using the ploy that the very challenging times ahead for the city and state due to the troubles on Wall Street require this sudden and immediate change. They insist that experienced leadership is required and that we can’t have a “mayor-in-training” during such uncertain times. Of course if there were any real truth to that sentiment every supporter would be voting for John McCain over Barak Obama, who has less legislative experience than almost any member of the City Council.
If ever there was a time for experienced leadership, it was right after 9/11. However, we never even considered extending term limits then. Not for four more years, and not even for 3 more months as was suggested at the time. We somehow got through that crisis with three new citywide elected officials and a majority of the council and four of the five Borough Presidents newly elected.
We managed to recover then. That is the nature of our system. We will recover again, and by this time next year we could be in a very different situation. Plus Bloomberg has 14 more months to put our house in order for the next chief executive, regardless of which direction the economy is heading in at that time.
So it would seem we can safely eliminate the experience argument. Voters recognize other qualities in candidates besides experience. Even more incredible, they are claiming that they are doing this in the best interest of the people, and that voters need to have every potential candidate to choose from in 2009. They will decry any limitations that might be put on the voters, even with the clear abundance of candidates they will have to choose from. Of course, what they are really upset about is the limitation put on them. They are not prevented from running for office, just the one they currently hold.
Clearly, if they really had the interests of the voters as their highest priority, they would not show such disdain for the voters and the decision they made in two referendums.
Could they be any more arrogant or offensive?
After all, this is not some philosophical policy disagreement, as they try to make it seem. We, the people, set the rules through a legal referendum by which the Council and the Mayor will serve. They are telling us in return that we can’t tell them what to do, they will feel free to change the rules as they see fit, in their own best interest.
The courts will eventually decide the legality of the move, but the Courts cannot decide on the ethics of this maneuver. Changing the term limit laws in the manner being proposed will subvert the democratic process in New York City, effectively nullifying the referendum process as an avenue for the people to express their will, even in matters of government oversight.
Ultimately, this is an attempted coup d’état by legislative fiat. It is an effort by desperate legislators and an arrogant executive to steal four more years in office than they deserve. Incumbent politicians rarely lose elections, and they know this. This does nothing to enhance the choice of the voters, but rather guarantees the choice of these council members for four more years at the public trough.
The legal justification for this coup is a 1961 case, Benzow vs. Cooley, where the Buffalo City Council overrode a previous referendum by the voters limiting local officials to only one term in office. Does this mean that there is no legal recourse if the Council and Mayor are successful? This decision is far from definitive, despite what Bloomberg, Quinn and their supporters would have everyone believe.
First of all, the Buffalo Council changed the law for future council members, not the then sitting members. Second, this decision was made at a time when the courts still affirmed the Jim Crow laws, granting excessive and now clearly unconstitutional powers to the state and federal governments. The courts are historically not flawless.
Additionally, there was a much more recent challenge. In 2003 there were a handful of council members who were about to be term limited out of office after serving only six years, one four year term and then one two year term, abbreviated by the census that required new elections for the newly drawn districts.
Led by then Speaker Gifford Miller, the council passed an amendment to the law that said that an abbreviated two-year term does not count as a full term, but instead as half a term. As you might expect, court challenges ensued. Many good government groups at that time supported Millers claim that this was merely a clarification of the law over an unanticipated issue and did not violate the spirit of the law.
At that time I served as President of the NY Young Republican Club, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs who alleged this was not a clarification but a violation of the clearly expressed will of the voters. We turned out to have the minority opinion at that time, and the courts ruled in favor of Miller and his clarification.
However, the justices writing in the majority opinion were clear that they allowed this move because they agreed it was a clarification of the law and not an attempt to subvert the people’s power. There is no question that this more recent decision will give substantial ammunition to opponents, including now all the good government organizations. Undoubtedly, this is why proponents of the coup never cite this case as one of their precedents.
New York City's future is not dependent upon the service of any one person or group of people. And no one has the right to hold any single office indefinitely. This is exactly the kind of self-interested behavior the people sought to restrict when they originally voted for this reform. If the will of the people does not matter in this case, when does it?
For people who are only interested in a career in public office, there are many other positions they can run for. If the contribution they make to the public is so valuable, they will surely be elected to some other office. However, consider that if the people who have been running our city for the last seven years were so capable, they surely would have foreseen this dilemma and would have done more to avert the coming crises. Instead, after years of fiscal profligacy, we are now on the verge of a financial disaster akin to the one experienced in NYC’s darkest days in the 1970’s.
Ultimately, if Bloomberg believes he must be involved in city government for four more years, nothing is preventing him from running for Comptroller or Public Advocate. Both are positions he could easily win and would provide him with the opportunity to continue working for the people of NYC. And no doubt the people will gladly continue his $1 per year salary.
Robert Hornak, a resident of Astoria, is a candidate for City Council in 2009.
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written by Andrew Roman , October 22, 2008
It's interesting ....
It is easy to stand up for and support the tenets of a free and open society when things are going well. In prosperous times, people are more apt to embrace not only our republic, but the institutions that make this the greatest country in the world - and that includes our sometimes inane process of casting ballots and determining the guideines of tenure.
Yet, whenever there is a bump in the road - something inherent when human beings are involved - there seems to be a propensity to be drawn to a state of "panic" - as if to say that the "systems" we so easily laud in good times are somehow remarkably fragile and tenuous, therefore change is needed. Damn the people!
As you point out, after the attacks of September 11th, there was no real push to officially extend term limits so that Rudy could remain in office - and almost certainly, the case could have been made the, if at any time at all.
It wasn't, and it shouldn't have been.
Our system of democracy forges on and moves ahead, even the face of a brutal terrorist attack - the mark of true strength and perseverence. It's so nice to hear that Mayor Bloomberg has such faith in the system - and ultimately, the people - that he is willing to just make it up as he goes along.
This is obviously his latest "high fat oil" initiative.
Your over-arching theme is spot on. "We the People" really means "Bloomberg the People."
written by RRR , October 24, 2008
There is little in the way of silver lining in the storn clouds overhead. Bloomberg and Quinn and company have subverted the will of the people for crass personal gain effectively granting themselves four more years of employment, paychecks, pension benefits and influence to peddle. Ok we assume Bloomberg's motives were other than pecuniary but Quinn and her Council minions are not off the hook and Bloomberg's lust for the limelight is apparently the only coinage he desires after 7 years in the spot light, 7 years of unearned adulation.
It still remains possible that one of the many lawsuits that will be pressed will prevail and then these scoundrels, the whole lot of them can hopefully be retired to obscurity and infamy. One can only hope.
But there was silver lining of sorts. First of all the 3 Republican Council member stood tall and voted no standing athwart against Bloomberg's bribed forces proving once more that Republicans stand for something even while they are likley to feel Bloomberg's and Quinn's wrath soon enough. Second I found myself routing for folks like Barron, Green and Avella, typically rank demogogs and windbags of the worst order because they had the balls to stand up against Bloomberg and Quinn and made reasonably cogent aruments while doings so. Moreover their performaces proved to me a few thing 1) there is indeed a time and place for bombastic selfrightious outrage and 2) practice makes perfect and 3) these folks do share more values rooted in the American credo than I would have thought and 4) apparently a tad more respect for the will of the people than Bloomberg, Quinn and the vast majority of Council "democrats" that set aside good sense, and notions of popular democracy for an indeterminate amount of silver coinage.
Tradition has it Isacriot hung himself from a tree after being paid his thirty pieces of silver for betraying his brethren and more. I am not holding my breath to hear word that the 28 scoundrels who so remarkably betrayed the people's trust will suffer similar pangs of conscience. I am however, confident that there is nothing these rascally dogs can ever do to warrant trusting them again with any authority of any kind.
written by alice Lemos , October 24, 2008
the pleasure of voting these cynical bums out.
written by Jay Golub , October 28, 2008
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10...135647.htm
You know when Albany Democrats are attacking someone, you've done semething very wrong...
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