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It's been just over a year since Mayor Bloomberg made his pitch for extending term limits to three terms and since then, the City Council approved it and the Mayor launched a (pricey) third term re-election bid. With a month to go before the election, the NY Times finds that while New Yorkers like Bloomberg, but many are still sore about term limits.
Bloomberg remains relatively popular with voters, getting about a 70% approval rating. However, only 50% of those polled say they'll vote for him. CUNY poli sci professor John Mollenkopf, who has "informally advised" the Bloomberg campaign, said, "The Bloomberg campaign can’t convince voters to not be upset about this. It won’t work. If you ask New Yorkers what they did not like over the last eight years, term limits is the major negative."
Which is what mayoral challenger City Comptroller Bill Thompson is reminding voters. A Thompson pollster believes that term limits is what has put a "ceiling" on the Mayor's numbers, in spite of his expensive campaign (Bloomberg's campaign says that Thompson is focusing on term limits because he can't match the mayor's record of performance). One Bensonhurst woman said she would vote for Thompson, " I didn’t go to college, but I know right from wrong. This was wrong."
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Well there are two sides to this coin -- and don't play the democracy card, I could give two shits:
1. Term limits suck. If the person in office is competent, no reason for that person not to be able to run again.
2. Term limits should be applied to other public servants. Look at Congress, they blow.
How about we swap it the other way around? The executive branch with no term limits, and the LEGISLATIVE branch with term limits. It's those guys that are far more useless and far more damaging.
And the reasoning behind this? The executive branch, we directly vote in. They can't technically do something unless they have the expressed written right to do it (or break the law in the case of Dick and Bush).
The legislators? They dick around for 1 to 6 years and then get reelected because no one pays attention to them =/
1. I don't believe for a second that some of these posts are not BLOOMBERG TROLLS.
2. The only thing more UNDEMOCRATIC than term limits is the CURRENT ELECTION SYSTEM IN THE USA, where incumbents automatically win reelection 95% of the time b/c it's not a FAIR FIGHT.
EX: none of you recall that Bloomberg spent over $200 MILLION OF TAXDOLLARS already promoting himself for reelection---nevermind the record amounts of his OWN money.
No other human can compete with this. (Duh.)
(The mayor has his face in the paper 365 days a year! Not even the biggest movie stars or rock stars can compete with that publicity!) (it's WHY a Rudy and Mike ran for mayor in the first place, duh.)
THE INCUMBENT HAS EVERY UNFAIR ADVANTAGE over his or her opponent. The current design is insane at best.
EX: the Mayor decides the pay hikes for the unions who endorse a candidate! Can you say "conflict of interest"?
EX: the mayor gives out YOUR money (against your wishes) to all kinds of non-profits, who (illegally) support his reelection!
IN A PERFECT WORLD, term limits are awful, I agree. And until the time this world becomes perfect and fair, WE NEED TERM LIMITS ON EVERY SINGLE PUBLIC OFFICE, from Attorney Generals to Police Commissioners, to Congressmen.
END OF STORY.
Of course, TERM LIMITS are irrelevent here. It's Bloomberg's SUPER-CORRUPT OVERTHROWING OF DEMOCRACY that is the issue. He said so himself! "Changing term limits without a new referendum would be despicable". Too bad Thompson won't hit this criminal half as hard as he could.
NOW, LET'S TEACH THIS CROOK BLOOMBERG A LESSON ON NOV 3rd and make the whole world proud of us!
cxb
Please lets VOTE Bloomberg out of office on Nov. 4th..His totally disregard for the people of New York, his blatant abuse of power with term limits etc.. as well as the fact that under his administration, we had the Sept 11 th crisis, wall street catastrophe and economic downfall, rampant abuse of power and corruption in financial institutions and government agencies where there is a totally lack of accountability of budgets because the auditors are not independent but in bed with the Bloomberg administration, increase in homelessness due to loss of homes by the mortgage scandals ...
If he was such a great Mayor none of these catastrophes would have happened and are still happening ....
Bloomberg needs to Go Back to manageing his FIRM ... not a city.. He has no understanding of Macroeconomic policies and he wants to run the city like a factory with overseers, overseeing to ensure that you and your friends remain with fat bank accounts ...
The education system is a sham ... with dumb-downed tests and even dumber administrators ( principals, superintendents etc..) who could only do three years in the classroom and then leave to be administrators because they themselves cannot manage the classrooms ...
What a sham! Many students are graduating high-school and then have to take remedial classes at college and also the drop out rate is very high because these students are really graduating with a 6th grade education.
People Wake Up ! Stop the Abuse of Power and vote Bloomberg out! ... Fool me once, fool me twice ... Don't let Bloomberg fool you a third time .. Please!
How bad is Bloomberg?
No joke: I, the world's number one Giuliani critic and hater, would vote for Looney Giuliani over Tax Hike Mike Bloomberg.
You all are lucky you don't know 1% of Bloomberg's scandals. (I do. And it's scarier than you'll ever know, but he, unlike Rudy, has a total lockdown on the media.)
There is no democratic issue although certain political parties try to play this and imply that there is, like Johnny Cochran played the race card during the OJ trial.
The issue is not that they do or don't suck. The issue is simply that there were two voter referendums that resulted in continuing the term limits.
Mr. Bloomberg decided that the desires of the voters of NYC were unimportant.
That's the only issue; everything else is just smoke.
@ gawkthis - I agree, but would argue that overturning 2 voter referandums is the definition of un-democratic and so there is in fact a democratic issue, implied or otherwise. Not very similar at all to the "race card" played by OJ's attorney, for the simple reason that one point is valid and the other is not.
For the electorate, "Duh" is the right word: a lot of them say they're against his nullification of term limits, and then they're going to vote for him.
In principle, term limits are stupid -- "Stop me before I elect more." So I always used to be against them. But they got rid of Giuliani!! Without term limits, we'd still have that ghastly Frankenstein's monster lurching around the city picking fights with street vendors and taxi drivers and droning "9/11. 9/11, 9/11...." Because the same stupid people who will vote for Bloomberg would vote for Giuliani forever. Or, as the man said, "Duh."
Term limits are desperately needed in Congress. How many people complaining about Bloomberg had no problem with Ted "Splash" Kennedy and a bunch of other paleo-politicians spending decade after decade after decade in office and becoming de-facto American royalty?
I am thoroughly convinced that the Democratic party heads are just too lazy to make sure that they endorse intelligent, level-headed people to represent the party on their ticket.
RUBEN DIAZ? Fuck that. We need a new party for people that have a working brain and no emotional attachment to brain-cell killing things like organized religion.
Democratic Party heads don't 'endorse' candidates!
Democratic candidates are elected by the Democratic Party Voters in the September Primaries (as are Republican and other party candidates)
So, if you have a complaint, you have really no one to blame but the voters themselves. You do vote, I assume?
from the NYTimes article:
"They have created a new round of commercials that play up Mr. Bloomberg’s middle-class roots, to soften his image as an imperious billionaire who defied the will of the voters."
a rose is still a rose
this country was built by men who rebelled against another imperious billionaire who defied the will of the people back in 1776. it was a good idea then too.
We can argue the philosophical aspects of term limits all day, but in the case of NYC it is quite simple. Twice, a referendum was put to the voters, and they chose to enact term limits. Any departure from that should have been again presented to the voters.
The Mayor, and his beholden council members did an end around the voters. The insult of their argument is the claim that the council vote is equal to a new referendum in that it is 'representative government' in action. The recent primary results are a hopeful display that the voters aren't fooled by this transparent, and baseless argument.
My personal opinion is that term limits exist in the form of elections, and the only term limits that should be legislated are the ones contained in the 22nd Amendment. The perception of a sitting president as royalty is not what this republic needs to present to the world; and Bloomberg likens himself to a Feudal Lord which is far worse.
In the case of Giuliani; he never attempted to remove the term limits provision. He did explore the idea of delaying the inauguration, therefore extending the transition to the new administration by 3 months.
Furthermore in regard to Giuliani vs. Bloomberg; Bloomberg is far more arrogant, he just comes off more likable, which is a joke. You might think Rudy was obnoxious, but at the end of the day Bloomberg has done far less, and what he has accomplished would have been far out of his reach if Rudy had not made the strides he did when in office.
I realize that Gothamist's demo is approx. 19 - 29, and a great deal of you are post-college transplants from other areas of the country, so your initial experience in NYC politics centers around Rudy's term in office. The time preceding him is more than a romantic view of a grittier NY: I miss the grit of my youth, but the city was not living up to its potential and in many ways was a dangerous unpleasant city.
Now I give anyone credit for taking this job; after President of the US, this is the hardest job in the world, and in my opinion a better job at that. The thing that people from other parts of the country fail to appreciate is the true dynamic of this city over others around the world. This is truly a 24 hour city, with one of the densest populations in the world. Effecting change to infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges facing any municipality; it's like painting a moving battleship.
I think Giuliani would not have considered an "end run" around the will of the people as represented by the two referendum results.
He seems to believe in the sanctity of the legal system and the elections, as representative of society's mandates to it's elected officials.
I recall an interview that included questions about an unpopular law. Rudy responded that he would continue to enforce it even though he personally disagreed with it, because it was the law and the expression of the voters' desires.
We've seen how Mike reacts to laws and election results he disagrees with.
Given the choice, I would gladly rather suffer another term with an obsessively ethical mayor like Rudy, than with a Wall St trader who lives to game the system.
What are you talking about? Diktator Giuliani wanted to extend his term for several months into 2002. Freddy Ferrer and most other sane people opposed it, so the Il Duce dropped the idea.
And you believe that Rudy believed in the 'sancitity of law'?
Again, what are you talking about. He regularly broke the law. So many of his policies were overturned in Court.
Personally, I know several laws that he failed to enforce.
Hell, he even ignored the laws of the Church he so piously tells everyone he is a part of: He married his effing first cousin and then remarried and got a divorce from that wife and remarried again.
Il Duce holds no law sacred, God's nor man's.
Wasn't it Bloomberg that pitched the biggest fit when Giuliani tried to run a 3rd term? I wouldn't vote for Bloomberg for this fact alone, the arrogant POS.
that was the part that infuriates me. Love or hate Rudy, at least he was willing to let us vote him back in if we wanted. Bloomberg just decided (as usual) to ignore the will of people and do what he damn pleases.
Anyone who doesn't have a net worth of at least a billion dollars and votes for Bloomberg should be hung up in Times Square - wake up people, Bloomberg doesn't give a shit about you.
The funny part is come November Bloomberg will be the mayor again.
"funny" ? no. sad, yes.
no third term