On Demand
Political Musical Chairs
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Dick Dadey, executive director of the Citizens Union, a watchdog for the public interest and an advocate for good government, talks about NY elected officials and their musical chairs as well as the term limit debate.
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Comments
Term limits are a must particularly now since Bloomberg is pushing record building causing cranes to call every couple weeks.
Slush funds?
I prefer term limits for executives but not for legislators, particularly if the executive is relatively powerful, as the mayor of NYC is since the charter revision of the 80's. At the same time we need a reform of the access to the NY ballot. I came to a primary for City Council to vote for a particular candidate only to find that she had been thrown off by the Dem machine that was locally controlled by the incombant.
Term limits are an unfortunate but necessary tool in a democracy to ensure that "career politicians" with unfair campaigning advantages are forcibly removed from office to allow for new blood.
The U.S. Congress should impose term limits on itself.
Bloomberg is a thorn in our side. What's the big deal over having term limits? We put it into effect for President after the Roosevelt situation and if it works for President then it will work for everyone else. As your guest just noted, these are not supposed to be permanent jobs and we need fresh ideas. Two terms--eight to ten years is plenty. Let them go while they are still good at their jobs and before they become complaisant and corrupt like Ed Koch and Joe Bruno!
Even reformers need to be elected and serve to enact reform. The fastest way to government reform is finance reform.
I am generally against term limits and I like Bloomberg. That said, I dislike Giuliani, and we probably wouldn't have Bloomberg without term limiting Giuliani, so I can't complain too much.
We need term limits for the mayor - they all seem to go power mad after one and a half terms - Bloomberg and I've had enough thank you - it was nice while it lasted - I liked Giuliani till he went cuckoo too.
we should amend the law and allow at least three
terms
Mr. Dadey is wrong.
Term limit is good and it is excellent.
Look at my neighborhood G. Oliver Koppell has been in politics since I have known myself and now I am over 40 years.
The old guards of politburo have to move on, new ideas must be welcomed.
I will say that maybe the length of office should be increased for US Congress which is only 2 years and that's just about enough time to figure out what the job entails. Or we can allow them more that two terms and so with a four term limit in this case.
yesterday i posted
" although i feel the voters should control term limits, in practice the power of incumbency is so powerful in the current 2 party system, i could never vote to end term limits. the founders planned on a citizen legislature not a profession class of people who couldn't make it in the real world."
This is a special situation.
NYC will be in the midst of the true recession by the time Bloomberg is set to leave office. Among potential candidates, is there anyone who would be better at leading the city through hard economic times?
Following FDR's death, the Republican congress pushed through the 2-term amendment.
the real problem, getting rid of undesirable incumbents, can't be solved effectively by term limits.
what we need is a better-empowered electorate, for which a crucial step is to end gerrymandered districts.
the term limit amendment was pushed through by the republicans becasue the demecrats had control of the white house for so long.
FDR was the closest America has come to a dictator. That is why they put the term limit restriction. They decided that 16+ years in office was simply too long. The President is not and should not be an elected monarch.
Term limits or not - for executive offices (e.g. Pres, Gov, Mayor) at least make term duration long enough to get tough work done - say five years. This would also make vote scheduling and participation a bit more rational.
We have had a system for term limits for over 200 years! It's called "elections."
Voters can always vote someone out at the end of their term. The fact that they don't is an indicator of the politician's success or of the apathy of voters.
A vindictive Republican Congress passed the term limit for president. They feared that the Democratic majority of the New Deal would roll on. Although FDR was loved by the majority of voters he inspired the same kind of hatred among conservatives that Bill Clinton inspired and that led to the Clinton impeachment.
Some of the concerns about FDR's power were justified. I mean, the court-packing situation is a great example. The Supreme Court was not being cooperative, so he was essentially set out to create a Supreme Court that was guaranteed to be friendly to him and his policies. Let's face it, if Bush decided to put two more justices on the Court, liberals in this country would start foaming at the mouth (and rightly so!).
The city council is more or less a circus and does very little of value other than argue incessantly, waste money through rampant corruption and make fools out of themselves. I don't see any harm in keeping term limits on them. In fact, it is incredibly beneficial to the city
In 2006, my assembly member of 11 terms and my state senator of 10 terms both ran unopposed in the general election and neither had a primary. Unfortunately for New Yorkers, this is far from unusual. The folks who think voting is the alternative to term limits seem to be unaware of the situation. What further examination does Mr. Dadey require? Council districts contain 160,000; Assembly 120,000; State Senate 300,000(all approximate). Can anyone believe that we have a shortage of citizens to do the job?
This thread is closed.
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