Term Limits

On the weekend before the commencement of public hearings on a legislative proposal to extend term limits, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn held a brief press conference to announce what everyone around City Hall already suspected—that she favors Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to allow elected officials to serve three terms in office, up from the two currently allowed.

Quinn painted her decision as a demonstration of leadership in a divided City Council, and also as a bold stand during a financial crisis which, ultimately, will give voters more choices in next year’s election.

“As we move forward in these very difficult times, continuity in leadership will allow our city to continue to work,” Quinn said this afternoon at a press conference in City Hall’s Red Room.  read more »

A reader in the comments section tried connecting a few dots between Michael Bloomberg’s former consultants at Knickerbocker SKD and the role some key players in the term-limits debate are playing, including Christine Quinn and the powerful union 1199 SEIU.

It's speculative stuff, but here's what we know: Bloomberg, as the Times noted today, hired Josh Isay of Knickerbocker for his 2005 re-election campaign and is likely to rely on him again for the next one. (In a brief email exchange today, Isay politely declined to detail the role he’s currently playing for Bloomberg.)

Isay is also a consultant for Quinn, who hasn’t publicly stated her position on the effort to change term limits legislatively, although  read more »

And I thought we were obsessed with term limits.

NY1 is keeping a useful tally of how each of the 51 Council members plans to vote on the bill to extend term limits. At the moment, the Web site lists 14 "yes" votes, 17 "no" votes, and 20 undecided.

NY1 also plans on airing live coverage of the two hearings that will take place on October 16 and 17 at City Hall.

And most fun of all: Reporter Roger Clark has begun visiting the districts of each undecided Council member to talk to constituents.

 

The bloc of City Council members opposed to changing the law on term limits legislatively just got one more supporter.

Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, according to a line buried in this NY1 story, has now said she supports putting the issue up for a referendum. Mealy had initially declined to comment on the issue.

Mealy's position was pointed out by the Working Families Party spokesman, who is keeping a running tally of where the Council member stand on this issue.

Two remarks stood out from Michael Bloomberg’s weekly interview with radio host John Gambling this morning. One explains why critics are opposing his run for a third term, and the other explains why he didn’t run for president. They both boil down to competition and fear of losing -- essentially, a political version of the free-market, rather than moral, argument.

In answering the critics of his plan to change the term limits law, Bloomberg said, “All this really does, John, is give the public more choice. And I find it fascinating, those who are arguing against it argue against it because they will have competition, which they didn't want.  read more »

Hiram Monserrate, a city councilman who won a Democratic primary for the State Senate seat in Jackson Heights being vacated by the incumbent, John Sabini, told a group of reporters on the City Hall steps just now that he's not sure how he will vote on the term-limits bill.

"I'm undecided," said Monserrate after approaching reporters on his way in.

Monserate is in the unique position of having some options.

He's pretty much guaranteed to win the State Senate seat, which has no term limits attached, or if the law changes, he can run for reelection to the City Council and is unlikely to face much opposition.

One of the reasons that Michael Bloomberg’s recent public efforts to change the term-limits law has been fairly successful is that it's been in the works for a long time. But despite rampant speculation in recent months, it appears that opposition emerged with force only this week because earlier this year, nobody really thought this would happen.

The New York Times reports today that the mayor’s “emissaries” were reaching out to term-limits activist Ron Lauder two years ago, and there was no real objection to it at the time. Even David Seifman's story in April, which reported that   the mayor was polling on this issue, didn't mobilize any organized opposition.  read more »

Ron Lauder just released a statement that may complicate the whole term-limits debate.

In short, it says that he met with Michael Bloomberg today and will "reluctantly" support a change to the law that would allow elected officials to serve for three terms in office, instead of only two.

But, Lauder says he will "vigorously" work to change the law back to a two-term limit when the issue is put before voters in a 2010 referendum.

Pushing to revert back to a two-term limit may end up angering first-term City Council members, like Jimmy Vacca, who will only get eight years in office, while their colleagues one cycle ahead would get 12.  read more »

If term limits are extended, the convention wisdom is that incumbents City Council members are basically shoo-ins for their current seats, in no small part because they’ve raised tons of money campaigning for higher offices already.

But they’ve also spent lots of money. Too much, perhaps.

Some City Council members have raised and spent money with eye towards a borough-wide or citywide races, but they then turn around and run for their old seats, the contribution and spending limits are much lower.

For a City Council race, the spending limit is $322,000 ($161,000 for the primary and $161,000 for the general election).

According to the Campaign Finance Board, Christine Quinn’s campaign spent $285,535.  read more »

Christine Quinn is expected to announce later today that she supports making changes to the city’s term-limits law legislatively, rather than through a referendum that would put the issue to voters.

That's a change from the position she took on term limits last December, but, as it turns out, it’s actually in line with Quinn’s previous position.

In a public forum for City Council speaker candidates on November 21, 2005, Quinn said of the law permitting city officials to serve only two terms:

I also oppose term limits.

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I think it doesn’t allow elected officials enough time to become experts on the issues we need to be experts on in the legislature.  read more »

State Senator and Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr. thinks New Yorkers should Michael Bloomberg's third term as a matter of faith.  read more »

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent announcement that he would seek a third term as mayor brings back the issue of term limits and its connection to good government and long-term planning. I am against term limits anywhere, including the American presidency. The 22nd amendment was an anti-democratic, anti-government mistake, just as the term limit mandate in New York is a bad idea. The argument against term limits is simple and has two parts:

1) People should be able to vote for anyone they want (this is a concept known as democracy).
2) Term limits extend an elected official’s “lame duck” period from about a year to four.  read more »

So, what happened with the city’s Charter Revision Commission between January 17, when the mayor announced he would create one, and October 5, the day Howard Rubenstein announced that the mayor intended to make Ron Lauder  read more »

The idea that the Wall Street crisis makes a third term for Michael Bloomberg more appealing to voters sounds familiar to Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor who served under Rudy Giuliani.

"Looking back at historical precedents, the same argument was made after 9/11 when Rudy Giuliani was in office," Mastro said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Mastro said calls for Giuliani to stay in office after his second term "was an issue that was aired publicly and not brought up by him." He added, "It was Rudy Giuliani who put an end to it and said it would be undemocratic to stay on.  read more »

Oliver Koppell, the City Councilman who is introducing a bill to extend term limits from a maximum of two terms to a maximum of three, said what’s happening on Wall Street helps make his case.

“To have a mayor that is knowledgeable about financial matters is good," Koppell said, referring to the very real possibility that Michael Bloomberg would seek a third term if the law were changed. "And we want the financial community to have confidence in the city as they’re making decisions in this very turbulent time.”

Speaking to me just now via cellphone, Koppell went on, “The members of this Council have faced the difficult fiscal times after 9/11 and we’ll be facing a similar situation in the next two years.  read more »

On the 10 Questions page, a man from Las Vegas poses a question that probably wouldn't see the light of day at a conventional, journalist-run candidate forum: "Why don't congressmen and senators have term limits? Would you support a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits?"