Bloomberg, Quinn Rift Possible Over Term Limits
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Even though the speaker of the City Council is abandoning efforts to change the city’s term limit law, a debate could erupt at City Hall over the rules if Mayor Bloomberg tries to end the council’s ability to extend term limits for its members with a ballot referendum next year.
Speaker Christine Quinn, who announced yesterday she wouldn’t support any plans to change the term limit law, said she also wouldn’t back a referendum seeking to curtail the legislative authority of the council by barring it from voting on term limits in the future.
Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday he is planning to speak with city lawyers about possibly drafting such a ballot referendum. “There is this technical imperfection, if you will, in the existing law that was approved by the public, where in theory the City Council could go and override the wishes of the public,” he said. “I think that that should be taken away.”
Despite staunch opposition to the city’s term limit law, Ms. Quinn said she would not support legislation in the council to change term limits, nor seek or support a referendum to eliminate or alter term limits. “Whether or not I agree or disagree with them, the reality is the voters have made their will very, very clear,” she said.
The council has considered overturning term limits in recent years, but retreated in 2006, after a survey commissioned by Ms. Quinn found only four in 10 New Yorkers favored allowing members to hold office for more than eight years.
As recently as October, however, Ms. Quinn said the council had not made a decision on term limits.
A council member who represents parts of Queens, David Weprin, said he would like to put the term limit question before voters again, but noted that, it would be unlikely without support from Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn.
The executive director of the advocacy group Citizens Union, Richard Dadey, said he is concerned that Ms. Quinn’s decision will end the term limits debate. “We fear that with less than two years until the next city election too many current council members are spending more time running for their next office instead of serving their constituents,” Mr. Dadey said in a statement.