An End-Run Around Term Limits Is Eyed

A host of former City Council members may be considering running for their old seats — and running an end-around the spirit of the city's term limits, critics say.

The potential for 2009 city ballots to be littered with names of past members is triggering an outcry from term limit supporters, who say former council members who run for their old seats would circumvent the will of New Yorkers, who twice voted in favor of limiting the time elected officials can spend in city offices.

A defunct organization once devoted to preventing the council from allowing its members to run for third terms is promising to spring into action if any former members run for their old seats in 2009.

"One of the reasons people twice voted for term limits was an expression of wanting new blood, new thoughts, new ideas," a founder of the group, People to Stop a Self Serving Council, Kenneth Moltner, said. "One would have hoped that the City Council would have heard the will of the voters and wouldn't try to go against that will."

The city's term limits referendum allows officials to serve two consecutive terms and does not specifically prevent former council members from running for their old seats, an election lawyer, Leo Glickman, said.

In recent years, the 51-member council has considered overturning the limits, but a 2006 survey commissioned by Speaker Christine Quinn found only four in 10 New Yorkers favored having council members stay in office longer than two terms, largely sobering such plans.

Opposition to term limits is strong in the council. A council member of Brooklyn, Lewis Fidler, said they have been "an ill-conceived idea from the beginning."

"The idea that people will come in for eight years and make the best contribution they could make and then go back to their farm is just not realistic," he said.

Term limits were introduced to the council in 1993 after Ronald Lauder, the businessman, philanthropist, and son of cosmetics magnate Estee Lauder, bankrolled a campaign to have them approved by a citywide referendum. In 1996, New York voters again upheld term limits.

Only one term-limited council member, Thomas White Jr. of Queens, has run for office again. Mr. White was re-elected to the council in 2005, beating the incumbent council member, Allan Jennings Jr. A council investigation found Mr. Jennings had sexually harassed two female employees.

A former council member of Queens who was termed out of office in 2001, Karen Koslowitz, said she is "thinking very, very seriously" about running for her old seat.

"I did a lot of good things as a councilwoman," Ms. Koslowitz, the deputy president of Queens, said. "The fact is, I'm allowed to run for the City Council and it's up to the people in my district" to decide "if they want me."

The executive director of Citizens Union, Richard Dadey, said he wouldn't be surprised if each borough has one former member trying to reclaim an old seat.

"Some of these folks live to be in elected office and will jump at the next best opportunity, which is likely their old job," Mr. Dadey said. "I have heard a number of former council members talk about their possible interest in running once again."

Although Citizens Union opposed term limits when they went before voters in the 1990s, Mr. Dadey said the organization is "agnostic at this point about whether or not to extend them or keep them."

He said he'd like the city to have a thoughtful debate about their value now that there is local evidence and experience to draw from.

According to a New York political Web log, Room Eight, nine former council members "are rumored" to be considering running for their old seats.

A former council member who ran unsuccessfully for president of Manhattan in 2005, Eva Moskowitz, said she is not planning to run for the council again, but does hope to run for mayor. She said she has not decided whether to enter the 2009 race.

Ms. Moskowitz, who favors term limits, said former council members who run for their old seats would violate the spirit of the law.

"The point of the term limits law was to increase choices for the voters, not to have a class of elected officials who are constantly in office," Ms. Moskowitz, CEO of the Success Charter Network, said. "I think it would be a shame if it becomes sort of an insular passing of the baton."

Another former council member, Kenneth Fisher, said there might be former members contemplating council campaigns, but he noted that none have asked him to write a contribution check just yet.

Mr. Fisher recalled that when the first and second wave of term limits broke over the council, proponents of the limits were upset by the number of candidates related to term-limited members who jumped into races.

Voters, he said, didn't appear overly concerned then and it's not clear they would be now.

Former council members "have the experience," he said. "It wouldn't surprise me if some of them offered that experience up to the voters."