Submitted by Michael Meyers, Aug 22, 2008 13:02

There are many New Yorkers--not just billionaire Ron Lauder--who support the People's Term Limits Law. We keep telling these self-dealing pols to get a real job and that they have eight years in the City Council or mayoralty or as borough president or Public Advocate before having to seek other employment, either in another government post or in the private sector. They can always run again for Mayor or City Council after a four-year break. But that's not good enough for them. They--including Mike Bloomberg--get into office, pay lipservice to respecting the people's will, and then as their terms near an end they think they are indispensable and needed for another term. They spend taxpayers' money to clean up the stench of their slush funds--Bloomberg's and Quinn's. And Christine Quinn even spent public funds to conduct a poll as to whether the people would be amenable to changing the term limits law. The answer came back — leave the term limits law alone.

Bloomberg spent a paltry portion of his billions to poll to see whether his popularity in office would be a factor in getting people to abandon or change the term limits law. He too got the same answer. Leave the term limits law intact. How many terms are enough for these people? Three? Why not four? Why not five? This argument that the City Council and mayor and other incumbents need "just four more years" is a trojan horse argument; it is a utilitarian, self-dealing one. They really are opposed to term limits and will kick open any crack in the People's Term Limits Law that they can, towards their goal of staying in office and overturning term limits entirely.

Bloomberg should have moved to close the loop hole in the law that allows for the City Council to on its own overturn the term limits referendum of the voters. He could have made the heroic argument that the rule of law is more important than the hubris of the incumbents in public office who seek to extend their own time in office by overturning the people's term limits law. But, no, Bloomberg has also revealed himself as just another power broker who thinks of himself as the best the city can get. Please name some of those businesspeople she claims want Bloomberg to stay, and want him to help overturn the Term Limits law so that he may have a third term? Those gophers should be forced out of their holes and answerable to questions and willing to debate this issue publicly. But, no, the nobless oblige types really think they have cornered the market on management and good judgment, when in their own business sector, as we have seen, they are neither the best nor the brightest that they claim to be. Eight years are enough; with the advantages of incumbency, we know that term limits are the only effective way to control egos in government.

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