According to the Times, Mayor Bloomberg will announce on Thursday that he's going to seek to have the NYC term limits extended from 8 to 12 years and run for a third term. I'll make a few separate points:
1. In general, I'm against term limits for NYC mayor. There are arguments to be made that power will corrupt even the best of politicians over time and that limiting the mayor to two terms restricts his ability to overreach. But, I generally trust the voters to kick out a bum in city hall. New Yorkers seem to pay a lot attention to mayoral elections - there will be ads, debates, endorsements - the voters will have their say.
2. On the other hand, I don't trust the voters to shake up the City Council, so I think the current two term limit on Council members is a great idea. I don't know what the exact reasons are, but it's almost impossible to oust a sitting City Council member. Is it that people just don't pay attention to these races? Is it because the Democratic party machine works hard to keep them in office? Is it a fundraising issue? All of the above? I don't know. What I do know is that in 2005, 43 of the 51 city council members ran for re-election (the others were either ousted by term limits or ran for higher office). Of the 43 incumbents running, 42 were re-elected. The only one who wasn't was Allan Jennings, who was found guilty of sexual harassment by the City Council itself; his opponent had already served on the Council from 1991 to 2001 and was heavily supported by the Queens Democratic machine. The basic conclusion is that unless you do something horribly offensive (like sexually harass your employees) and lose support of the party machine, you'll be re-elected to the City Council.
3. Whether or not term limits are a good idea, it's particularly self serving for the current mayor and the current Council (the vast majority of its members are facing term limits in 2009) to extend their own jobs for 4 years. This isn't a philosophical debate at all - this is just a bunch of politicians deciding that they want to stay in office and are willing to change the rules to do so.
4. The pro-Bloomberg argument seems to be that term limits are a good idea in general, but that these are "extraordinary times" and that Bloomberg is the only person who can lead this city through them. Bullshit. The current financial crisis could turn out really bad, but it's a little soon to judge. Post-9/11 was an extraordinary time, but we didn't extend term limits then. I think Bloomberg's done a great job and is particularly well suited to handle the current situation, but couldn't some other CEO who is well-liked on Wall Street run for mayor?
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