LOCAL NEWS

Four more years for councilmembers?
At Gay Center’s public forum, local politicians speak out on term limits

By JAMES WITHERS
Friday, December 02, 2005

New York City voters twice, in 1993 and 1996, have said City Council members should be restricted to two terms. Be that as it may, most of the council members looking to be the new City Council Speaker come January have expressed desires to change the term-limit system.

At a mid-November forum at Baruch College, seven of the eight city councilmembers, including Christine Quinn (Chelsea), who want to replace Council Speaker Gifford Miller would amend the law to add another four-year term to the current two terms allowed by law.

City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who represents District Six (West Side 55th to 96th streets) joined other community leaders at the Center on 13th Street to discuss what term limits mean and why the City Council seems to be wary of what voters want. The Nov. 28 event was sponsored by a number of gay and lesbian political organizations and moderated by Davidson Golden, of NY1’s “Inside City Hall.”

Brewer admitted she is skeptical of term limits, especially after talking to a lobbyist who is working for a non-profit she has worked with in the past. According to Brewer, the non-profit hired the lobbyist to be a conduit to city officials.

“There is confusion about policy makers from those who do not have inside the Beltway access,” Brewer said.

She suggested the complexity of city government and law is so much that 12 years would be more appropriate than the current eight.

Harry Kresky, counsel to the New York State’s Independence Party, however, told the 65-member audience that the council has a conflict of interest in this matter and should not be setting their own limits for employment. Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, agreed.

“It should not be the Council to extend its own term,” Dadey said.

Dadey noted his organization was opposed to term limits in the 1990s. Now Citizens Union has no opinion, but thinks if the council does not vote to extend term limits then a commission should be appointed to examine the whole matter.

Where did term limits come from?
The argument for term limits in the city began in earnest in 1993. Ronald Lauder, a wealthy businessman and failed candidate for mayor, gave financial support to a group called New Yorkers for Term Limits. The organization gathered nearly 130,000 signatures and put the question on the ballot. New Yorkers voted to “limit all elected officials in New York City to two consecutive terms in office” by a vote of 59 to 41 percent.

Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College and an expert on New York City politics, noted in the mid-1990s, term limits was the red hot topic across the country, especially in Washington, D.C., when the GOP, led by then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, listed it as part of the Contract With America.

Muzzio thinks there’s a simple reason why the City Council wants to tinker with limits: self interest. “They are there and don’t want to leave,” Muzzio said. “Or they want to leave on their own terms.”

However, Muzzio also offered some healthy critique of voters, noting that their asking for politicians to serve a set amount of years is an easy out.

“Elections are term limits. Artificial term limits are a labor saving device for a lazy electorate,” Muzzio said.

A City Council looking to stay on the public payroll or a public unable to make it to the ballot? Whatever the reasons if the City Council decides to buck the voters, expect a lot of noise.

“If the Council does what they have suggested and change term limits by legislation, there will be a large hue and cry,” Muzzio said. “It will be very unpopular, and there will be an attempt to get the measure back on the ballot.”

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