From three years to three months ago, Mayor Mike Bloomberg was vociferously for keeping New York City's term limits on the books, despite the talk coming from the city council that wanted to change things back to the way things were. Interestingly as his second and final (according to the law as it is now) term is coming slowly to it's conclusion, the Mayor is changing his tune. Well, one group is out to remind him and all New Yorkers about what he's said to the press and the public in the last three years.
From New York for Term Limits:
Daily News, 11/23/05
Mayor Bloomberg denounced some City Council members’ calls to extend their term limits through legislation as an anti-democratic “outrage” – noting voters twice approved the eight-year limit law.
“While it may be that that the City Council has a right to override them, deliberately saying to the public, “We don’t care what you think,” I would use the word disgraceful,” Bloomberg said yesterday.
“The cynicism that that would engender towards city government is not something that this city needs,” the mayor added.
“The public wants term limits, and if that’s what they want, we should all learn to live with ‘em.”
New York Post, 7/19/06
Mayor Bloomberg declared yesterday that he’d oppose any effort to put a third referendum on the ballot to change the law, which obliges city elected officials to pack it in after two terms.
“I think the public has spoken twice and they’ve spoken quit clearly. I don’t know that you should keep shopping for a different answer,” the mayor said.
“The public shouldn’t be bothered continuously with the same question.”
And there are so many more quotes at their website. Bloomberg should be reminded over and over again of his past words, because they ring true. Whether you agree or disagree with term limits in NYC, it was the voters that enacted the law...and it should be the voters who decide to change it back, not to be done in a backhanded way by the Mayor and Council.
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