| The term limits fight in New York City has its first outcome: Term limits have been tossed aside by the New York City Council.
I side with my friends in New York City who believe this should be left up to the public. After all, they elect these people to office. They should be allowed to determine how long they can stay there.
On a personal note, here in Orleans County we had our own term extensions effort by the Republicans here, although it was a little bit different. We don't have term limits here but our legislators serve a two-year term. The Republicans decided that too much of that two-year term was spent campaigning even though our local campaigns here last a few months. What the GOP here tried to do is stagger the terms so that the legislators who represented districts would run for re-election in one year and then in two years the at-large representatives would be up for re-election.
Oh, and one more thing: They wanted to increase the two-year terms to four.
The difference here was that the Republican legislators (at the time, it was an all Republican legislature) decided that they would leave it up to the people. In November, the citizens of Orleans shot it down by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council should let this one be decided by the people. After all, the citizens of New York City decided that they wanted term limits not too long ago. They should be the ones to decide whether they want to keep them or not. |
