A dozen years after a ballot measure limited members of the New York City Council to two four-year terms in office, many incumbents support easing or annulling the law.

A telephone survey by The New York Sun of the 51 council members produced 33 interviews and found that among those politicians, council members who backed easing or repealing the term limits outnumbered those who support the current law by more than two to one.

No formal proposal has been introduced, but council members, in one-on-one conversations at City Hall and in published articles, have discussed changing the limit of eight years of service. Opinions span a spectrum running from outright legislative abolition of term limits to a quest for voter approval for adding a third term.

“I can imagine that there is a legitimate case to be made that eight is the wrong number, but it is important to ask the voters on that subject,” a Manhattan council member, Eva Moskowitz, said. “Given the way we got term limits was through referendum, I am very uncomfortable with council members, who are interested in the outcome, not consulting the voters who have spoken, not once but several times, on the matter.”

Term limits were introduced in New York City in 1993, after a cosmetics heir and failed Republican mayoral candidate, Ronald Lauder, spent millions of dollars founding and financing the group New Yorkers for Term Limits, which pushed it onto the ballot and helped it win voter approval. Three years later, voters rejected a ballot initiative by the City Council to extend term limits to 12 years.

In 2003, the council voted to change the law to allow six council members, including Gifford Miller, the council speaker and now a mayoral candidate, to seek a third term, because redistricting had shortened one of their terms to two years. Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the change, but the council overrode his veto. The extension was challenged and upheld in court.

Several council members said they disagreed with the concept of term limits, which they said artificially limits voters’ choice in selecting representatives.

“We have term limits – they are called elections,” another Manhattan council member, Christine Quinn, said. “Some officials stay in government a long time because that is exactly what their constituents want.” Ms. Quinn, who is seeking re-election, said she would support both extending and abolishing term limits for council members.

Other proponents of change said junior members of the council make easy targets for sophisticated lobbyists or long-term staff members who can manipulate inexperience to their advantage, pushing private agendas into legislation more successfully than with more experienced lawmakers.

“Term limits give more power to lobbyists than council members because they enjoy continuity that council members do not,” a council member from the Bronx, G. Oliver Koppell, said.

Term limits may also create perverse political incentives, in which council members, with limited time in office, are preoccupied with making headlines through overly bold initiatives to increase visibility in their districts and around the city.

“There is definitely a sense in the media that some of the actions taken in this body lack gravitas,” one council staff member said. “Sometimes it is driven because people feel like they’re scrambling.” This aide said some council members are very conscious that they have only a short “window” in which to get things accomplished.

Supporters of maintaining the two term limit said council members’ performance doesn’t warrant a change and the clear results of the previous two popular votes on the issue should be respected. Some members agreed that instituting term limits worked in 1993 to clear out “dead wood” from city government and usher in fresh faces and new ideas.

“Eight years is plenty of time,” a council member from Queens, John Liu, said. The Democrat from Flushing said that while he has never been in favor of the concept of term limits, “The voters have already spoken in two referendums.”

Currently, 45 council members are eligible to seek re-election this fall. Only one of those, Ms. Moskowitz, is not running for re-election – she is seeking instead to be elected Manhattan borough president. Unless a change in term limits is approved, those 44 incumbents, providing they are all reelected this year, would be ineligible to run for a third term in 2009’s elections.

In 2003, Mr. Bloomberg tried to change city laws to permit nonpartisan elections. During his vigorous lobbying and extravagantly financed campaign for the change in the City Charter, the mayor, a Republican since the year before his election, faced criticism that he was trying to amend election laws in an overwhelmingly Democratic city for his own political advantage. The change was eventually deferred to apply, if adopted, only after 2009, but the charter change was defeated by a huge margin. Mr. Bloomberg has indicated that he opposes extending term limits for members of the City Council.

Ms. Quinn, who indicated she was “very comfortable” about extending term limits without a popular vote, does not worry about that criticism.

“I have, since Day 1, always opposed to term limits. This has nothing to do with my term or tenure in government,” she said. “I feel very comfortable being judged on my consistent position.”

Council Member Joseph Addabbo Jr. of Queens disagreed.

“To change the law now where it benefits me and others, I don’t think it would be fair,” he said in an interview. “I would love to entertain the idea, but I think ultimately, whether we agree to do it or not, it has to go back to the people in referendum so they can vote.”

A spokesman for Mr. Miller, Paul Rose, said: “The speaker is against legislative term limits in principle, but believes that if the law is to be overturned, it should be put to a referendum.”

Another Manhattan council member, Robert Jackson, disagreed about the need to consult the electorate.

“In my opinion, if we can do it ourselves, that’s the easiest way to go,” he said. “People will probably challenge it, and go through a legal process – that’s the way it has been done in the past. The courts will determine it in the end.”

Mr. Miller, along with his council colleagues Margarita Lopez, Philip Reed, and Bill Perkins of Manhattan, Madeline Provenzano of the Bronx and Tracy Boyland of Brooklyn, cannot serve another term under the current laws. Of the seven scheduled to leave office this year, five supported a change in the law and two could not be contacted.

Critics have charged that the council should debate term limits before this fall’s election, so that they will be accountable to voters.