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Bloomberg Spokesman Runs the Numbers on Term Limits

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October 17, 2008 | 11:01 a.m.

Michael Bloomberg's spokesman, Stu Loeser, e-mailed reporters with a handy, if not unexpected analysis of yesterday's lengthy hearing on term limits.

Only a narrow majority of people supported opposed changing term limits legislatively.

Here's Loeser's e-mail, which relies heavily on the 10-hour marathon live-blogging efforts Sewell Chan.

Looking over my notes from yesterday’s hearing, my count shows that 71 people testified against the Administration’s bill, 58 testified in favor of it, and about five or so weren’t quite clear about their views on this bill. That’s 55% against, and 45% in favor.

Does that sound wrong to you? Well, reading Sewell Chan’s liveblog from yesterday gets basically the same breakdown. Based on his reporting, 74 testified against the Administration’s bill, 62 spoke in favor, and three weren’t quite clear. That’s 54% against and 46% in favor – slightly more in favor than by my apparently-imperfect count.

Since I did the math, I thought I’d save you the effort of duplicating the work…

(To be clear, this is public witnesses, not members of the Council)

Stu
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